The Price
by RJ Thompson
Summary: Complete Sequel to "Flashfoward" A deadly new enemy is on the rise while old nemesis Gabriel Ashlocke searches for a cure. Can Mutant X beat the odds or will they all pay the price for tampering with fate? R&R please!
1. Portents And Potentials

-I don't own Mutant X or any of the characters. I do own this story and the character's I've  
  
created.  
  
  
  
Author's Note: This story takes place two weeks after the events of "Flashforward." I intended  
  
to have it finished much sooner, but two things caused a delay, and not of the pretty GS agent  
  
variety! First, I came close to suffering a very real nervous breakdown over my finals. Second,  
  
I started writing, hated what I'd written, started again, and hated that too! Now, I think I've  
  
finally got "The Price" on the right track, thanks to a suggestion from my sister. I hope you  
  
enjoy this!  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Part One:  
  
Portents And Potentials  
  
  
  
  
  
'Jesse Kilmartin just saved my life.' That thought kept running through Kelly Rice's head  
  
as she tried desperately to get her wits back about her.  
  
Inside the Clark Experimental Medicine Warehouse, the battle that had been raging  
  
between Gabriel Ashlocke's Strand forces and the Mutant X team was on pause. The fight felt  
  
as if it had been going on for hours but, according to a clock hanging on a nearby wall, it had  
  
only been a few minutes. Rising slowly and unsteadily, her right ear numb and useless, Kelly got  
  
to her feet and immediately stumbled against a desk. She felt weak and sick, like the time when  
  
she was a small girl and her father had taken her to an amusement park. The roller coaster  
  
hadn't gone well with the two hotdogs she'd eaten.  
  
"What happened?" Kelly mumbled, although she already knew. She had been supervising  
  
a raid, leading the Strand members Gabriel had assigned to her in a daring robbery of medicine  
  
for her ailing master. Recently, he'd become aware of something wrong with his body. Gabriel  
  
had almost killed Dr. Kenneth Harrison when the man told him he was dying. How a man as  
  
powerful and wonderful as Gabriel could ever die was beyond Kelly's ability to comprehend. It  
  
just didn't seem right.  
  
Moving like a newborn, barely able to move without stumbling, Kelly took a few hesitant  
  
steps and looked around the office. The explosion she'd caused had destroyed a huge chunk of  
  
the building and its contents. "Wow." She whispered, stunned at the damage. Her intent had  
  
been to block Mutant X with a wall of flames, not set a fuel tanker on fire. Unfortunately, her  
  
wall had ignited a leak and, if not for Jesse's daring leap in front of her, she'd have died in the  
  
blast that followed. Amazingly, thanks to her enemy, she had lived. A secondary explosion had  
  
lifted her off her feet and tossed her into the office. She didn't know what had happened to  
  
Jesse.  
  
"The girl, where is that girl?" She focused her mind and got a picture of the girl Gabriel  
  
had included as part of her mission objective. Her name was Tiffany Clark, and for reasons that  
  
were unknown to Kelly but unquestioned, Gabriel wanted her dead. "Where is she?"  
  
An instinct pulled her attentions toward what remained of the long hall of offices in the  
  
warehouse. She started walking, shakily at first but with increasing capability. When Kelly  
  
neared a corner, something fast and nimble shot past her. "Hey!" Though she had been moving  
  
fast, Kelly had caught sight of Tiffany's long black hair and a snapshot of the pink dress she'd  
  
been wearing when first sighted. "Hey! Little girl! Come back here!"  
  
She turned the corner at a run and then skidded to a halt as something heavy swung out and  
  
almost struck her in the face. Tiffany was holding a small fire extinguisher and swinging it around  
  
and around. "You get away from me you psychotic bitch!" The little girl screamed as she  
  
heaved the extinguisher at Kelly, who blocked it at the last second but was still knocked to the  
  
floor. Before Kelly could recover, the girl was gone again.  
  
"Bad day." She grumbled, rubbing at the bruise that was already forming on her arms.  
  
Flames started to roll out into the hall from a smashed office. Somewhere else in the warehouse,  
  
a chunk of the roof collapsed. At most, she had only ten minutes before the entire building fell  
  
down on her head. "Very bad day." With that thought in mind, Kelly started searching for the  
  
girl again, this time with greater care.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Brennan! Brennan, say something!" Emma DeLauro begged as she shook her teammate,  
  
trying to wake him, praying the explosion hadn't killed him. She looked up and quickly surveyed  
  
the area. Fire had engulfed half of everything. The flames licked higher and higher, moving at an  
  
oddly laconic pace, as if they were tired. Still, it wouldn't be long before the entire warehouse  
  
was an inferno. "Come on, wake up!" Emma screamed at Brennan. She leaned down and  
  
checked his pulse again, found it strong, and then put her ear close to his mouth to check his  
  
breathing.  
  
"Okay, so your alive. Why don't you wake up?" Her voice was strained and very worried.  
  
Even though it was likely the warehouse would last another ten or fifteen minutes, Emma wasn't  
  
sure if any other members of Mutant X were conscious. Shalimar and Jesse were unaccounted  
  
for, everyone had dived for a different shelter. Part of her was even worried about the Strand  
  
members inside the warehouse. They were Ashlocke's slaves, even if they didn't know it, no  
  
different from Eckhart's Imperial Guards, and if they could find a way to free them they'd do it in  
  
a heartbeat. She was just afraid that there wouldn't be a chance because the whole building was  
  
disintegrating all around her in a ballet of flame.  
  
A deep groan rolled out of Brennan's mouth. His eyes fluttered slightly. "What happened?  
  
I feel like I've been on a four week binge and got hit by a tank." He started to shake his head to  
  
clear his mind, stopped with a hiss as pain shot through his neck, then allowed Emma to gently  
  
help him to a sitting position. Brennan frowned and looked around the room at the fires and the  
  
destruction. "Maybe I was hit by a tank."  
  
"No. That brainless blonde bitch Kelly did this." Emma carefully felt around Brennan's  
  
shoulders for any signs of broken bones or other damage while she tried to use her gifts to  
  
search for the others. Unlike a telepath, Emma could only sense their emotions, but she knew  
  
Jesse and Shalimar well enough to know how their minds felt. She knew them almost as well as  
  
she knew Adam. Almost.  
  
"Kelly? She did this?" Brennan sounded stunned. "Wow, she must have gone through a  
  
mutant growth spurt like the rest of us."  
  
"She accidentally set a tanker truck on fire."  
  
A decidedly embarrassed blush formed on Brennan's face. "Oh." He took a deep breath  
  
and forced himself to his feet. "Okay, so little Miss Firecracker is still just playing with matches.  
  
That doesn't change the fact that—" his legs suddenly went weak and he almost collapsed.  
  
Emma grabbed his arms and almost toppled with him but managed in the end to keep them both  
  
from falling. For a moment, they were locked in a very close embrace. She felt his mind start to  
  
turn toward decidedly naughty thoughts then veer away, changing tone quickly to gratitude.  
  
"Thanks," he said after taking a deep breath to give himself half a chance to steady himself.  
  
"You're welcome. Are you sure you're okay? You took one hell of a blast. We all did."  
  
Emma glanced over her shoulder, back towards where she had leapt for cover, and wondered  
  
where the others were. Without intending to, as her eyes roved again over the darkly vital  
  
flames, she flashed back to the dark future. Images of death and destruction played in her mind.  
  
When she closed her eyes for a second, it was as if she were there again, hiding behind a wall of  
  
bodies and debris. A machine gun rattled somewhere and explosions ravaged the area, artillery  
  
from the GSA, while rebels desperately fought to retake the world from a monster.  
  
The memories were almost enough to double her over in agony. Every image of pain and  
  
death that flashed through her mind was accompanied by people's emotions and feelings. All the  
  
anguish, sorrow, and terror that she'd felt on the battlefield of a world thirty years in the future  
  
had been imprinted on her mind. Emma pressed her hands tightly against her head and focused  
  
all of her thoughts on Adam. It was the only solution to her suffering that she'd come up with so  
  
far. In the last two weeks, she'd privately re-experienced the nightmare future seven times. A  
  
part of her hated that she was now appearing so helpless and weak but it could not be helped.  
  
"Hey," a gentle arm nudged her, "you okay?" Brennan's voice slid into the memories,  
  
piercing them for a second then vanishing, leaving her still trapped. "Emma? Can you hear me?"  
  
He reached out and grabbed her arms, stared into the vacant eyes that normally glittered with  
  
friendly warmth. "Stop scaring me." He whispered desperately, "please stop."  
  
For a few moments, Brennan's words did not register in her mind. Then, slowly, they did  
  
but they lacked meaning. The only thing that kept Emma from losing herself completely in the  
  
darkness, from falling into the abyss of memory, was Adam's face. She drew strength from his  
  
image. In her mind, she wrapped herself in every loving moment she'd spent with Adam, and  
  
this defeated the remembrances of the dark future. It beat back the suffering.  
  
Emma took a deep breath. "I'm sorry." Voice so faint that Brennan almost didn't hear,  
  
she shook her head and drew another, shaky gasp that helped her to feel sane again. "I'm okay  
  
now. Just a little posttraumatic stress." Before he could respond, she raised her comlink and  
  
activated the communicator. "Jesse? Shalimar? Where are you two?"  
  
The answer came immediately. "Emma, thank God you're alright." It was Adam's voice,  
  
filled with a relief that was easily recognizable as loving if a person listened carefully.  
  
Before she could worry much about their secret being exposed, Brennan stepped forward  
  
and leaned in to speak into Emma's comlink. "Hey! What about me? I'm alive too." He  
  
grumbled, still rubbing at his head. "Not that I'm really happy about that at the moment."  
  
"Good to hear that you're still in one piece Brennan." Adam said in a slightly less  
  
enthusiastic manner, but with no less relief. He'd been worried about everyone after all, not just  
  
the woman he loved. "What about Shalimar and Jesse? Have you been able to contact them?  
  
Last time I spoke to them, they were fighting a Link with the power to negate mutant abilities."  
  
"No, we haven't heard from them. They might be unconscious or it could be interference.  
  
That explosion exposed a lot of electrical wiring. I can't believe we've still got lights in here."  
  
Emma glanced over at Brennan, who was surveying the area. He was examining the surviving  
  
walls around the office area, trying to see if they could still gain access to them. After a moment,  
  
he turned to her and shook his head, then winced. "We can't get out of the main garage area.  
  
The fire's blocking most of the offices from us. Any idea if we can even get out from here?"  
  
"According to the computer blueprints, and the improved locators I installed in your  
  
comlinks, you and Brennan can get out if you can get to the Green hallway."  
  
Emma smirked and raised an eyebrow. "We can get there. Why did the Clarks color code  
  
this place anyway? What were they working on out here?"  
  
"I don't have a clue. My contact with the government sent us on this one, apparently the  
  
Clarks requested the best security and we were it." There was a long pause. "Unfortunately,  
  
we don't seem to be earning our reputation today. I'm tracking Tiffany moving through the Red  
  
office area. Shalimar and Jesse were in a different part of the warehouse entirely, almost as far  
  
away as you two, the last time I spoke to them." Another pause, this one pregnant with  
  
uncertainty. The Red area was right next to the back exit, where the Double Helix was parked.  
  
Adam was closer than all of them.  
  
Before he could say it, Emma spoke up. "You're coming in, aren't you?" She didn't wait  
  
for an answer because she already knew what he was going to say. "Be careful. Kelly Rice  
  
might not be the most powerful new mutant alive, but she's far from harmless. Brennan can attest  
  
to that." She glanced at her friend, who was still rubbing his injured head.  
  
"Don't worry about me. I'll be fine. I just want the two of you to get out. If you can, try and  
  
save the Clarks research. Their main storage should be at the junction of the Green and Yellow  
  
hallways. There's an exit at the end of the Green hall. If everything goes right, I'll meet you at the  
  
Double Helix with Tiffany."  
  
"What about Shalimar?" Brennan asked as he came over, having heard everything while  
  
he checked doors for another way out. "Jesse was at the center of that blast that Kelly caused.  
  
Shalimar was in the same area. They could be badly hurt or. . . ." He didn't finish. He didn't  
  
want to think like that.  
  
"The computer says they're alive. Beyond that, I still haven't gotten any movement. All I  
  
know is that, without high explosives, I can't get access to them from here and neither can you.  
  
We have to trust them to save themselves for now. Tiffany can't fight Gabriel's people alone.  
  
Shalimar and Jesse are survivors, Brennan, they'll get through this." Adam's voice was filled  
  
with confidence, a contagious confidence that made both his teammates feel a measure of relief.  
  
When the connection broke, Emma nodded toward the color coded hallway. "Let's get  
  
that medicine. Anything we can deny Gabriel will make Shalimar smile, right?" She didn't wait  
  
for a reply. Emma ran for the hallway with Brennan directly behind here. The garage area was  
  
almost completely consumed by flames. Plus, Kelly had started a few lesser fires before, in  
  
various hallways to slow Mutant X down and provide cover for her Strand teammates. Soon,  
  
the entire Clark Experimental Medicine Warehouse would be an inferno.  
  
They didn't want to be trapped inside.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Kelly walked through the warehouse with little difficulty. Wherever she encountered flames  
  
that were too severe to pass through, she simply swept them out of existence with her powers.  
  
As a result, she'd made remarkable progress in rounding up her surviving team members. There  
  
weren't that many left unfortunately. Three had died in the explosion. That left her with only two  
  
others, plus a third she'd sent to prep their escape jet. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she  
  
felt responsible for the deaths. She just didn't have time to worry about them. She had more  
  
important things on her mind.  
  
Kelly rubbed at her arms as she pointed toward a formidable looking door. "She's in that  
  
office. Break the door down."  
  
Revenge was more important than dead people.  
  
Her command was obeyed by her remaining teammates. One of them, a Feral, snarled and  
  
ran straight for the barrier. She hit hard, so hard that the solid, steel reinforced security door  
  
actually whined like a wounded animal. Still, it wasn't enough and it left the Feral aching. As she  
  
rubbed at her bruised shoulder, the other member of Kelly's team stepped forward. He was a  
  
talented Molecular, with a power similar to that of Jesse Kilmartin, only it was limited to phasing  
  
out. The man took a breath and passed easily through the door. In moments, he had it open.  
  
As she entered, Kelly immediately caught sight of Tiffany. The raven haired brat was  
  
huddled in a corner, knees pulled tightly to her chest, shivering as if trapped in the arctic. "Not  
  
so tough now, are you?" She sneered as the Feral shut the door behind them to slow any  
  
would-be rescuers. Kelly raised her hands and held them up. All she had to do was close the  
  
gap between herself and the girl, then create a wall of fire. The flames would cascade over her,  
  
like napalm, killing her in a matter of seconds.  
  
Death by immolation was a lousy way to go. Kelly had watched her father burn to death  
  
in their home. She'd heard her mother and baby brother screaming, trapped by a wall of flames,  
  
as they were roasted alive in a shower stall where they'd taken refuge. It was just after that  
  
tragedy that she'd been recruited by Gabriel's Strand. The 0.0 tattoo, the mark of Genomex's  
  
Patient Zero, Gabriel Ashlocke, had been bestowed on her only recently, as a sign that she was  
  
trusted above the others. All of the truly faithful bore Gabriel's mark, and Kelly was proud of it.  
  
She was proud to kill for him.  
  
Just as she prepared to burn Tiffany to death, the girl suddenly shot forward and slammed  
  
something sharp into Kelly's right leg. "Ow! You little brat, what. . . ." Her voice trailed off as a  
  
strange numbness spread upward. Her thigh began to tingle. She looked down and saw a  
  
syringe sticking out of her leg. "What did you do?" Her voice sounded weak. The numbness in  
  
her body now encompassed her entire lower half and it was still spreading.  
  
"I gave you a dose of something my father created for people like you. I don't even know  
  
what it was." The Clark girl smiled then, a gleam of pure cruelty in her eyes. "I hope it kills you  
  
freak."  
  
Kelly tried to order her two minions to kill the girl but that icy sensation had reached her  
  
head. The world began spinning as her vision blurred. Just as she fell sideways, losing balance  
  
and consciousness, someone broke into the office, coming through a glass panel on one side.  
  
She watched as Adam Kane practically flew inside, landing in front of Tiffany.  
  
"It's okay, your parents sent me." He said to the girl as he took a fighter's stance and  
  
prepared to defend her.  
  
The first of Gabriel's people to strike was the Feral, who'd recovered sufficiently from her  
  
foolish attempt to break the door. She came at Adam with a snarl, eyes flaring saffron. He  
  
blocked each blow with relative ease, then counterattacked. For a few seconds, the two went  
  
back and forth. Skilled human versus Feral mutant. Then, as she tried to sweep Adam's feet  
  
out from under him, she got a nasty surprise. Jumping to avoid her leg, Adam grabbed the  
  
corner of a nearby desk and used it to pivot and swing in a devastating kick in the head. He'd  
  
never have been able to do something like that to Shalimar, but this woman wasn't as good. She  
  
was nowhere near as good.  
  
The Feral went down hard. Trying not to be too satisfied by her collapse, Adam turned  
  
toward Tiffany. "Go! Get out of here!" Then he spun back around and blocked a blow from  
  
the Molecular. Behind him, the girl carefully climbed out through the shattered window, glancing  
  
back for a moment before running down the hallway.  
  
Adam and the Molecular traded blows for a few seconds. The man wasn't a very talented  
  
fighter, he was falling back toward the sealed security door with every blow he narrowly  
  
managed to block. When a punch finally landed, he went intangible, acting defensively like a  
  
turtle pulling inside its shell. "If you can phase like Jesse, you've got his weakness." Adam said  
  
with a pitying smile. This was going to be too easy. "I almost feel sorry for Gabriel, having such  
  
lousy help." The moment the man took a breath, he became solid and Adam knocked him out  
  
with one good jab to his face. "Almost."  
  
"Come on mister!" Tiffany Clark called from outside the office. Her nervous face peered  
  
in at him through the broken glass, "this place is burning fast. We've got to get out of here!"  
  
Before he could answer, she turned and started running for the exit.  
  
Adam turned to look where Kelly had been, intending to take her with him. He didn't want  
  
her death on his head and she might be able to help them locate Gabriel's new base. The  
  
self-proclaimed god had abandoned Genomex recently, which would have been fine except no  
  
one was bothering to do anything about it. The government was content to pretend the GSA  
  
had never existed and let Mutant X deal with Gabriel and his followers. Which included Kelly,  
  
who should have been lying on the floor unconscious. "Oh great." She was gone. An air duct  
  
near the floor had been pulled open, letting the Elemental firebug pass easily into the next  
  
hallway. "Damn." Adam raised his comlink to his face. "Emma, Brennan, I've got Tiffany but  
  
Kelly got away. She's moving through the air ducts. Shalimar, Jesse, if the two of you can hear  
  
me, get out now!" He turned and went out through the broken window. He'd beaten two  
  
young mutants in hand to hand combat, rescued the damsel in distress, and all of it without taking  
  
a hit.  
  
Not bad for an old man.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
As fire licked its way closer to her, Shalimar Fox bit her lip and tried to keep herself from  
  
panicking. Her clothing was torn and singed from the explosion. Soot and bits of debris had  
  
become tangled in the golden locks upon her head. When she got to the Double Helix, a comb  
  
and a mirror were going to work wonders. The fire blazed higher suddenly, catching for a  
  
moment on a trace amount of some chemical that had spilled on the floor long ago. "Just stay  
  
calm. Just stay calm." She repeated over and over again, her eyes turning toward Jesse, who  
  
was working desperately to get an electronic security door open. "How much longer? We've  
  
only got a minute before we're roasted alive."  
  
Jesse glanced back over his shoulder, shielding his eyes as he gazed at the flames. "Oh  
  
gee, that long? Plenty of time." He looked better than Shalimar, considering he'd been at the  
  
epicenter of the blast Kelly had caused. His clothes were unmarred and his face was only lightly  
  
dusted with soot. He'd massed out in order to shield the girl. Still, he'd been lucky. The blast  
  
could have killed him. "I've almost got this."  
  
"That's great, but can you get the door open before we're dead?"  
  
"If I can't, you won't be around to complain about it." He grumbled, his mind too focused  
  
on what he was doing to keep annoyance out of his voice. "I just wish we hadn't run into that  
  
Link. I've still got a while before my powers come back." Beneath Jesse's fingers, something  
  
sparked. "Ow! That did it."  
  
The door rumbled open. As it did, Jesse and Shalimar's comlinks buzzed to life. Until  
  
now, something about the door and surrounding walls had been blocking the communication  
  
aspect of the machines. "Shalimar, Jesse, if the two of you can hear me, get out now!" Adam's  
  
voice filled their ears.  
  
"Don't have to tell me twice." Shalimar said with a smile. She strode past Jesse as he got  
  
to his feet and followed close behind, glancing back only when the room behind them collapsed.  
  
They looked at each other for a moment then started running. Fire followed, catching on the  
  
carpeting inside the White hallway. Shalimar's eyes went wide when she saw how it seemed to  
  
be following them. "You've got to be kidding me." She grumbled as they ran.  
  
Jesse got ahead of her by a few paces when he turned a corner and slammed into someone  
  
with a thump. He fell backwards, his elbow striking the wall. Coming up to catch him, Shalimar  
  
looked up and saw, of all people, Kelly Rice. The Elemental had grabbed onto a door frame to  
  
keep from losing her feet. One hand around her middle, probably to ease the pain from running  
  
into Jesse, she saw them and let out a surprised squeak. She spun around and started running,  
  
swaying slightly as if drunk.  
  
"This is a cosmic joke." Jesse muttered as he took off after Kelly. "Come on! She can  
  
lead us to Gabriel!" Legs pounding hard against the thickly carpeted floor, arms swinging like  
  
enormous pendulums, he pursued. Shalimar was right behind, moving almost as fast, slowed  
  
only by her mind's inability to ignore the flames that continued to follow them down the hallway.  
  
"Kelly stop, we just want to help you!" Jesse yelled at one point as they ran. He wasn't  
  
surprised when she ignored him, everyone usually did.  
  
The chase ended as abruptly as it had begun when Kelly almost ran into an exit door. She  
  
spun around and swung her arms out, creating an inferno before them. Something flammable  
  
must have been spilt on this spot recently for the flames billowed into existence stronger than  
  
she'd ever seen. Her body was aching and she felt dizzy from the injection Tiffany had given her,  
  
but Kelly was still standing, albeit shakily, and that had to mean something. She smiled at Jesse  
  
as he and Shalimar came to halt in front of her wall.  
  
"Sorry. You lose." She turned and started toward the exit, fully intending to leave them  
  
behind to fry, when Jesse yelled something that stopped her cold.  
  
"I saved your life." He declared, his eyes darting for a moment to the fire that was drawing  
  
nearer by the second, eating up the hallway with frightening speed. When he turned back, he  
  
saw that she was listening. There was something about the was he spoke that held the blonde's  
  
attention. "We want to help you. Gabriel's a madman. He's using you and all the Links. He  
  
doesn't care about you. We do." Jesse held up his hand, winced a little at the heat that almost  
  
touched his finger tips. "Come with us. You tried to escape once, you can do it again."  
  
Shalimar was fidgeting, unable to move any closer to the firewall Kelly had set up and  
  
unable to go back for there was no longer a hallway behind them. The upper air vents were  
  
struggling, attempting to draw off all the smoke that was rapidly enveloping them. She knew  
  
what Jesse was trying, knew that he was coming close to breaking Gabriel's hold on this girl. If  
  
he could get through to her, Gabriel was toast.  
  
"He's right Kelly. Ashlocke tried to control me once. He's been controlling you and all the  
  
Links, using you like he used me. He doesn't care about anyone or anything. We can help you  
  
but you've got to let us." She reached out too, although deep down she really just wanted to  
  
punch Kelly in the face for making the whole world into a giant fireball.  
  
For one second exactly, Jesse thought he'd gotten through to Kelly. There was a look in  
  
her eyes, like a lost child, frightened and alone. Then it was gone. A glazed and slightly spacey  
  
expression replaced it. It was exactly the same way she'd seemed when he first met her a month  
  
or so ago in a safe house, passing out flyers for the Strand.  
  
"Gabriel loves me. Gabriel loves all of us." Kelly said, her voice cold and dark. She  
  
turned and calmly walked out the exit, leaving them to die.  
  
Jesse threw his hands up in frustration. "Damn it, I thought I had her." He turned back  
  
toward the oncoming flames. They were only ten meters away now and closing fast, burning  
  
through everything they came near. "Shalimar, do you trust me?" He asked, glancing at her with  
  
a desperate look in his eyes. Before she could answer, Jesse wrapped his arms around his  
  
friend, pulled back five steps from the wall Kelly had set up, then dove through it back first.  
  
They fell to the ground on the other side, Shalimar leaping up like a frightened cat, him rolling on  
  
the floor for a moment to smother a few embers that threatened to turn his shirt into a torch.  
  
As they ran out the exit, just barely ahead of the fire that was devouring the hallway,  
  
Shalimar looked back at him. "I can't believe you would do something so crazy." She smiled  
  
warmly and headed for where the Double Helix was parked, surprisingly close they now saw to  
  
the place where Gabriel's people had hidden their jet. "Thanks."  
  
"No problem."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Brennan shocked the security door open. "Piece of cake." Entering quickly, fully aware  
  
that the fire seemed to have woken up and was now spreading throughout the warehouse like,  
  
well, a real wild fire. His eyes roved over the many experiments inside this office, test-tubes and  
  
Bunsen burners and strange devices that he'd never seen before and expected only Adam could  
  
identify. Two walls were covered in heavy leather journals that had no chance of surviving.  
  
Immediately across from him was a table with a cardboard box filled with odd looking  
  
electronics and a computer disk on top.  
  
"That's it. Right in front of us." Emma rolled her eyes as she walked over and hefted it.  
  
"Adam said Clark had left it right in plain sight but this is ridiculous. If we hadn't surprised Kelly  
  
and the other Links when we did. . . ."  
  
". . . Ashlocke would be back on his feet and ready to kick our butts," Brennan finished,  
  
turning back toward the door. "Let's get out of here before this place starts to look like the  
  
inside of a furnace." He stepped sideways as Emma walked out first, barely struggling with her  
  
load. Just before following her out, Brennan's eyes caught sight of a book on the desk beside  
  
the door. A copy of a collection of Walt Whitman's poems, a particularly rare edition. Without  
  
thinking, he took it and slid it into his coat, then turned and followed Emma.  
  
They went down the hallway quickly, moving fast but not too fast. The fire was behind  
  
them but it wasn't nipping at their heels. Balancing the box in her hands, Emma nodded toward  
  
a row of shelves. "Grab the vials marked with black labels. Adam said those were important to  
  
Clark's research too."  
  
As he picked up two test-tubes, Brennan shook his head and asked "any idea exactly what  
  
this guy is researching? If Ashlocke wants it, something tells me it isn't anything good."  
  
"Adam doesn't know and right now, I don't care. We were asked to save the day so  
  
we're saving it. Just grab them so we can leave. This box is getting heavy."  
  
"Want me to take it?" He asked kindly, managing to suppress any vaguely insulting  
  
insinuations he might have made under different circumstances. Afer all, there were few things  
  
more enjoyable than annoying Emma.  
  
She favored him with a wry smirk. "Oh would you? My poor pitiful woman's arms just  
  
can't possibly manage any longer." Emma shook her head and shoved the exit door open.  
  
Outside, the cool air made them both take a deep breath. A decent sprint away was the Double  
  
Helix. Shalimar and Jesse were already there, climbing onboard. Adam stood outside, a dark  
  
haired girl with him. "There are the others. . ." She stopped dead in her tracks. "Take this."  
  
She handed the box to Brennan who just barely got hold of it.  
  
"Hey, what's with the sudden change of heart?" He grunted as he attempted to use his leg  
  
to help him get a better grip.  
  
Emma wasn't listening. She'd just gotten a hit off the Clark girl. Most of the time, when  
  
she caught a burst of strong emotions, they involved anger or fear. Sometimes she felt other  
  
people's sadness or love. Lust came through pretty clearly too. As she rapidly closed the gap  
  
between herself and Adam, she felt Tiffany Clark's emotions so strongly that they almost bowled  
  
her over. She felt blinding, white hot, hatred and revulsion.  
  
"I refuse to ride in that thing with a bunch of freaks!" The girl was speaking in such a low  
  
and viciously cold voice, Emma hadn't heard her until now, as she came to stand beside Adam.  
  
Tiffany raised a hand and pointed at her suddenly. "I suppose this is another one of your team?  
  
Another animal that looks like a person?"  
  
"You little bitch." Emma whispered, feeling a surge of anger. Before she could do anything  
  
or say anything more, Adam turned toward her and smiled, defusing most of her anger. His eyes  
  
told her that he felt just as insulted and upset as she did.  
  
Brennan walked up then, his attention on carefully putting the test-tubes with black labels  
  
into the box. As he came within earshot, the warehouse fell inward. "Wow." He muttered,  
  
watching and listening to the sound of a building and very nearly a dream dying. Without the  
  
files, equipment, and chemicals he and Emma had salvaged, the Clark family would never be  
  
able to recreate their experiments. A lifetime of research and close to a billion dollars down the  
  
drain. "Good thing we got this out in time." He said as he held up the box, feeling rather pleased  
  
with himself because he hadn't heard Tiffany's hateful words.  
  
He also hadn't met her father.  
  
"Tiffany! Get away from that lying bastard!" A voice cried out from nearby. Everyone  
  
turned to see a man in his forties running up, white lab coat billowing behind him as he came. He  
  
wore a pair of thick glasses that made him look comically like a fish. At the moment, a shark.  
  
"You son of a bitch. How dare you expose my daughter to a bunch of inhuman freaks!"  
  
Before anyone could stop him, Dr. David Clark reached out and practically tore the box of  
  
experimental equipment from Brennan's arms. He glared at Adam. "When the government told  
  
me they were calling in the best to protect my research, I expected true and noble human beings,  
  
not genetic anomalies." There was a look of madness in his eyes as he seemed to contemplate  
  
throwing the box of research away because Brennan had touched it. After a moment, he calmed  
  
down just enough to shove it under one arm and hold out his hand. "Tiffany, we are leaving.  
  
Now."  
  
The girl haughtily threw her hair back, imperiously glared at Adam and the others, then  
  
took her father's hand and started to walk with him back towards an expensive sports car. "Dr.  
  
Clark, my team saved your daughter's life. But Gabriel's people are still out there. They'll try  
  
again." Adam called out as the man slipped behind the wheel.  
  
"All of you freaks can go to hell! I'll protect my daughter and my research with real people,  
  
not a bunch of talking lab animals." Dr. Clark called back, ignoring Adam's concerns and the  
  
success Mutant X had achieved by rescuing his daughter and saving his research. Before he  
  
drove away, he made an obscene gesture that was eagerly mimicked by Tiffany. Then they were  
  
gone, racing toward home at breakneck speed.  
  
Emma and Adam stood together, too stunned by the hatred to say anything at that moment.  
  
Brennan saved them the trouble.  
  
"Well, at least we don't have to apologize for their warehouse burning down."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
When the warehouse collapsed, it made a sound like an animal dying. It really did. Kelly  
  
Rice heard it and spun around in surprise. The building moaned its death wail and imploded,  
  
causing thick geysers of fire to explode upward into the night. Never before in her life had she  
  
seen such an amazingly beautiful sight. "Gabriel would love this." She whispered, never realizing  
  
that her beloved leader didn't care about anything but himself and would have laughed at  
  
something like this. Kelly smiled anyway, happy in her delusions.  
  
Then, as she turned back toward the jet the Links had secured earlier for transport, her  
  
mind went to Jesse. He was her sworn enemy, Gabriel's enemy, yet he'd risked his life just to  
  
save her's. It was unbelievable but it had happened.  
  
For the tiniest fraction of a moment, in that critical instant between emptiness and revelation,  
  
Kelly wondered if she'd made the right choice. "Should I have gone with them?" She  
  
whispered, her words sounding blasphemous to her ears, for they would have angered Gabriel.  
  
Yet, hadn't she once tried to run away from him and the Strand? Kelly ran a hand through her  
  
short blonde tresses, flicking them up and letting each hair fall back into place, tickling her  
  
sensitive skin.  
  
The sensation reminded her of being a child, when her mother used to brush and sometimes  
  
even braid her hair. She'd been a gentle woman, Mrs. Rice, and exceedingly proud of her  
  
daughter. Once, when she didn't know Kelly was listening, she told a friend how grateful she  
  
was for the miracle treatment Genomex scientists had used to save her daughter. That was  
  
before they knew she was a mutant, before the fire. Everything good in her childhood had been  
  
before the fire.  
  
Maybe it was that bittersweet memory, maybe it was just the fact that Gabriel had played  
  
with her hair like that once after making love to her, or maybe she was just too desperate to  
  
believe the lies. For whatever reason, Kelly turned away from the warehouse and walked  
  
towards escape back into her unacknowledged slavery. As the jet roared to life and began to  
  
rise into the air, she reached into her pocket, grasped the vial of medicine she'd stolen just  
  
before accidentally turning the warehouse into Pyro. Park, and tried to smile.  
  
She couldn't manage even a grin.  
  
  
  
  
  
******************************  
  
  
  
  
  
"I can't believe those people," Shalimar grumbled as the Double Helix settled down for a  
  
gentle landing in the hanger at Sanctuary. "We save their daughter, we risk our lives doing it,  
  
and they call us freaks and leave without so much as a thank you! Thanks to Kelly, the jerks will  
  
even collect a hefty insurance policy on the warehouse and because of us, they didn't have to  
  
lose any of their precious research to do it." Venom dripping from every word, the blonde  
  
growled and waved a hand in a gesture of pure frustration. "I mean, what's wrong with this  
  
picture? We saved the day, saved the kid, and for what? No one even has the time or decency  
  
to thank us. It's just not right."  
  
"Yeah, well, better luck next time." Grumbled a surprisingly cheery sounding Brennan. He  
  
smiled warmly. "Whether or not anyone intends to thank us for our good deed for the day, I  
  
feel great. I'm going to throw on some shorts and get in the Dojo for a while."  
  
Emma tapped him on the arm, a look of amused concern on her face. "Are you sure  
  
you're okay? You took a pretty bad hit." She glanced over at Jesse, who was about to run a  
  
systems check. "And what about you? Doing alright Mr. Hero?" The words were soft but  
  
mocking. "I can't believe you risked your life to save that crazy bitch."  
  
"Ooh, watch the language Emma. A child's present." Shalimar said as she tried to cover  
  
Brennan's ears.  
  
He brushed her hands away with a guffaw and walked down the ramp into the hanger.  
  
"Laugh all you like, I'm in too good a mood to zing you back. Like I said before, I'm going to go  
  
train, work off all this energy." He smiled and shook his head. "After fighting Gabriel's loon  
  
squad, shooting off enough lightening to power New York for a few months, and nearly getting  
  
blown up, you'd think I'd be exhausted." Again, Brennan shook his head, only this time it was  
  
to demonstrate that he could do it without pain. "And my headache's gone. Guess this is my  
  
lucky day, huh?" With springy steps, he headed for his room and a change of clothes.  
  
Shalimar walked out of the Helix right behind him, still teasing in a good-natured way. The  
  
joking was little more than a pretext for watching Brennan for any indication of serious trauma,  
  
no matter how good he claimed to feel. Although they weren't quite officially a couple, the two  
  
looked out for one another in their own special ways.  
  
A grin on her face, Emma turned back to Jesse, and spoke with friendly concern. "You are  
  
okay, right?"  
  
"Just fine nurse DeLauro." He answered with a smirk as he stood up, having forgotten the  
  
systems check. It wasn't really that important. How much damage could the Double Helix  
  
really have taken from Gabriel's little surprise? "I feel like a million dollars. No, make that two  
  
million. Wait, no, three. Definitely three million dollars."  
  
As he started to head for the ramp, Adam clapped a hand against Jesse's shoulder.  
  
"Good. Then you can start repairs on the Double Helix." He said as they walked out of the ship.  
  
Emma laughed at the forlorn expression that came upon Jesse's face. "Ow, oh! Delayed  
  
shooting neck pains!" He grunted, rubbing at his collar bone. Unable to keep a straight face for  
  
long, a wide grin broke out as he mimed walking with crutches.  
  
"Really, I'm seriously decrepit here. I need a vacation, preferably in Cancun, Mexico. I  
  
could really use a harem of crazed Spring Break babes." He fended off Emma's playful punch  
  
and walked out of the ship. "Seriously though—"  
  
"You can actually be serious?" Emma interrupted, shaking her head as she followed, fiery  
  
hair swirling with the motion. He gave her a dirty look and she glared right back before bursting  
  
into a fit of giggles. "Jesse, you've really got to get your mind out of the gutter. I don't like  
  
having to wade through the sludge whenever I'm in the same room with you."  
  
"Is it my fault that you're a telempath?" His expression softened slightly. He'd seen a very  
  
subtle glint of the self-doubt that everyone knew plagued Emma. It was never easy to find, the  
  
evidence was always circumstantial, but they were aware of the insecurity even so. No matter  
  
how hard she tried to hide the fear, it peeked out on occasion, as it did now. For the briefest  
  
moment, her eyes had been sad and angry. Jesse saw that and said, "I suppose I can try to think  
  
happy thoughts. Really, I'll try. Its just hard not to think dirty thoughts when you're around. You  
  
bring out the worst in me." He said that last in what sounded like a seductive overture but was  
  
really just a joke.  
  
"Obviously. Especially with your sense of humor." The smile that formed on Emma's face  
  
was one of pure victory. As she turned and walked out of the hangar, Jesse clutched at his  
  
chest, as if her words had been physically wounding. "I have a bad effect on your acting skills  
  
too!" A groan of disturbingly realistic pain made her turn around and catch Jesse miming an  
  
absurdly theatrical death scene. "Bye Jesse. I'll talk to you after you've gotten out of this crazy  
  
mood you're in!"  
  
Walking away from the hanger, leaving her teammate to start repairs on the ship, Emma  
  
started to feel tired. Every mission she was on filled her with excitement, terror, and a feeling of  
  
strength when she took down an enemy. Coming back to Sanctuary after an especially difficult  
  
ordeal, after fighting hard and winning against all odds, it was like suddenly coming down from  
  
the heights of passion. Draining but satisfying. Running a hand through her almost blood-red  
  
hair, dyed a few weeks back but still perfect, Emma walked without a particular destination in  
  
mind.  
  
Sometimes, when she wanted to think, she'd stroll about the halls of Sanctuary, passing  
  
through its many common rooms, until her mind yielded whatever answers she sought. Lately,  
  
she spent more time talking to Adam than wandering her home, but when the need for solitude  
  
came, her feet took her on a journey through this amazing place.  
  
Now, as she walked, Emma let her mind wander back to the battle and to her emotions as  
  
she fought. What was it about Kelly Rice that angered her so much? Kelly wasn't a killer nor  
  
was the woman particularly evil. For the most part, Kelly was just a lackey of Gabriel's.  
  
Granted, she was enthusiastic about serving him, but did that make her a monster like him?  
  
Hadn't her eyes bulged in terror when the tanker caught on fire? Hadn't Jesse almost reached  
  
the lost little girl inside of her? Emma couldn't help but answer "yes" to all of those points.  
  
Where did her hatred for this woman come from? When had she started to feel it so strongly?  
  
She wasn't able to put her finger on it, not yet.  
  
"Thinking long thoughts?"  
  
Emma was startled out of her introspection by the familiar voice. "Adam! You shouldn't  
  
sneak up on me like that." She said as she pressed a hand against her rapidly beating heart,  
  
wondering if it was surprise that sped her pulse or the man who was watching her with loving  
  
eyes. Her own eyes equally adoring, a sparkle of beguiling desire entered them. Voice throaty  
  
and seductively warm, Emma said "unless you plan to kiss me afterward." She pouted her lips  
  
slightly in invitation and yearning.  
  
Adam grinned. "If I could, I'd spend every moment of my day kissing you." They both  
  
glanced around, saw that they were completely alone, then kissed hungrily. Keeping their  
  
affections secret the last two weeks had been difficult. Both of them regretted the decision to  
  
hide their love but neither could figure out how best to tell everyone what had happened between  
  
them. So they kept apart more than they'd like, slept alone far too often, and only rarely  
  
allowed themselves a loving touch or kiss outside of a locked room.  
  
Indulging in the exhilarating sensation that came from being so close to the woman he loved,  
  
Adam wrapped an arm around Emma and pulled her close. "We shouldn't." She whispered, so  
  
softly that he almost didn't hear. "What if someone sees us." There was no conviction in the  
  
words, only a vague unease.  
  
"I'm not ashamed of us and I'm tired of hiding." He whispered back, but broke away from  
  
her all the same. As he did, she stepped closer to him and kissed him again, this time very gently  
  
and sweetly.  
  
Emma's eyes were slightly moist when she gazed up at him. "Not once in the time we've  
  
been together have I been ashamed, Adam. I'm just afraid. I don't want the others to hate me."  
  
For one moment, she looked so terribly helpless that it made Adam's heart ache. Then, the  
  
vulnerability vanished and her smile came back. "Can we go somewhere and talk for a little  
  
while? There are some things that have been bothering me and most of the time I feel like you're  
  
the only one who understands me."  
  
He reached out and touched her chin, lifting it just so, then leaned down and kissed her one  
  
more time, because it always made them both feel more connected, more alive. "I want to talk  
  
to you too. There's something I need to ask you and its really important, its been on my mind  
  
for a while." As he spoke, he soothingly caressed her cheek.  
  
Nodding as she started walking, her fingers slipping easily into his grip, Emma ran his words  
  
through her head, feeling an electric sensation of anticipation. 'What does he want to ask me?'  
  
She wondered nervously. 'Is he about to break up with me? No, that's crazy.' Her grip  
  
tightened on Adam's hand, their fingers curled together, a physically symbolic bond. Although  
  
she didn't know it, he was worrying about much the same things as they walked toward  
  
Sanctuary's garage.  
  
They'd done this several times before, one then the other climbing into a car and driving  
  
into town, always when the others were distracted enough not to follow.  
  
If Jesse was going to be fixing the Double Helix and Shalimar was going to watch over  
  
Brennan while he trained, they could go out without much fear of being seen by their friends.  
  
The undercurrent of risk wasn't completely unwelcome though; they both thrilled at it. Risk, like  
  
any spice, made the banquet of life a little more scrumptious. Also, like a spice, too much made  
  
a meal inedible. Going on a secret date was one thing, fighting crazed new mutants quite  
  
another.  
  
"Where do you want to go?" Emma asked as they entered the cavernous garage. The  
  
structure was set apart from the hangar, though not by much, and had a tunnel that led straight  
  
out to a hidden exit onto a very quiet dirt road. Great care went into setting up that system. It  
  
was just one more reason Emma found Adam so attractive. He was brilliant.  
  
"It's too early for a movie or lunch," Adam said after glancing at his watch. That seemed  
  
impossible, but it was true. It had been extraordinarily early in the morning when they'd arrived  
  
at Clark's warehouse and the light of dawn had just barely crept up by the time the battle was  
  
over. Now, it almost felt like a day had passed without them knowing. Most people slept in  
  
on a day like today. "We could walk around town, kill time until a decent restaurant opens."  
  
As Emma started to open her mouth to reply, someone came running into the garage.  
  
"Hey, are you guy's going out too? Mind if I save some gas by tagging along?"  
  
They both turned and stared, trying desperately to keep their faces from showing their  
  
mutual depression. "Brennan, I thought you were training." Adam said, his expression as neutral  
  
as he could make it, his voice just this side of irritation.  
  
"Yeah. Training. With Shalimar." Emma said, making the last two words into something  
  
close to a suggestion.  
  
If Brennan noticed that he'd interrupted a clandestine date, it didn't show. He smiled at  
  
them and laughed. "I was. Then I realized, I'm too up for that. I need to go party in town.  
  
Dance till I drop, which probably won't be for a while. And until a good place opens, I can hang  
  
with you two!" He walked over and clapped them both on the back. "Come on you guys!  
  
Let's go out and have some fun!"  
  
"No offense Brennan but. . . ." Before Emma could figure out a sweet way of telling him  
  
to go away, he interrupted.  
  
"Hey! I just remembered this great club that's open twenty-four and seven. Good food,  
  
fair drinks, and great music. Sometimes they even have karaoke, which might not be the funniest  
  
thing ever invented, but it can sure come close!" He laughed again, obviously very pleased with  
  
the plan he was coming up with.  
  
"Really, Brennan, we just wanted—." Even as the words came out of his mouth, Adam  
  
was practically bowled over by another friendly, but obnoxious, pat on the back. His eyes slid  
  
to Emma, who was wearing a look of exasperation. He shrugged, she frowned. He nodded  
  
toward Brennan, grimacing slightly as the other man talked and talked and then talked some  
  
more. A mean smile on her face, Emma started to prepare a psi-blast.  
  
She never got the chance. Before either of them could say a word, Brennan had hopped  
  
into one of the cars Mutant X used, a vintage vehicle he'd picked up himself a few days before,  
  
and started revving the engine. "You two are going to love this place. I'll even buy the drinks.  
  
We don't spend nearly enough time together, you know? I'm usually with my bud Jess or doing  
  
something with Shal, it's about time I partied with you two." He reached across the passenger  
  
seat and opened the door. "Who wants shotgun? Man, this is going be great, right?"  
  
Adam sighed. Emma's shoulders drooped. How could they mess with a friend's mind  
  
when he was being so blasted pleasant and friendly? They glanced at each other and shrugged.  
  
"Yeah." He mumbled despondently, heading for the side seat.  
  
"Great." Emma said, her voice bordering on depressed.  
  
Brennan was too busy grinning to notice.  
  
  
  
  
  
******************************  
  
Lingering back in the hanger, Jesse checked the minor damage the Double Helix had  
  
sustained on the way back to Sanctuary. Gabriel's people had set up a small anti-air rocket  
  
launcher near the warehouse. Once the Double Helix was off the ground, they'd been struck in  
  
the side by a missile. Two large shards of metal were deeply imbedded in the hull. A long  
  
scratch ran down the left side with a small scorch mark army flanking it. "The X-Men never  
  
have to fix their jet." Jesse muttered in annoyance as he hefted a toolbox and a large panel of  
  
replacement metal. "And if they did, I'll bet they wouldn't have just one person doing all the  
  
work." He shook his head and hefted a small hand torch. Turning toward the work, muttered  
  
"yeah, good old Jesse, the workhorse of Mutant X. Throw all the supplies on my back and  
  
watch me carry them without complaint no matter how much my back is aching."  
  
A decidedly unpleasant smile formed on his face, though the expression never dulled the  
  
kind warmth of his eyes. "I'll get back at them all!" Jesse whispered darkly and then pretended  
  
to twirl a mustache, like some old cartoon villain. He chuckled, shook his head, started to cut  
  
the damaged piece of hull loose, when the sound of someone laughing made him turn around.  
  
"God, that was the funniest thing I've ever seen!" Shalimar managed to gasp out between  
  
giggles. It took her almost a full minute to regain her composure. Smiling, she shook her head  
  
and walked over to Jesse. "I came to help you. Or should I run away and hide? You are  
  
planning our doom after all."  
  
"No, you're not getting out of helping that easy. No boom today." Jesse tossed her a  
  
spare torch, which Shalimar caught with all the grace of her animal surname, and glanced back  
  
over his shoulder, smiling wickedly. "I get my revenge tomorrow. Beware baby."  
  
Before she could answer, and at the exact moment that Adam, Emma, and Brennan were  
  
leaving the garage, an incredibly shrill noise filled the hangar. It blanketed them and muted  
  
almost all other sounds, even to a Feral's superior ears. Fading in and out rapidly, like an alarm,  
  
it seemed to reach out and swat at them.  
  
"What is that?" Shalimar asked as she pressed a hand against the side of her head, trying  
  
to stifle the headache inducing noise.  
  
Jesse calmly put down his torch, walked over to a communications panel, and pressed a  
  
button. Silence reigned instantly. "That," he said with annoyance clear in his voice, "was  
  
supposed to be a gentle ringing. I installed new software and hardware for Sanctuary's phones.  
  
Guess I crossed a wire somewhere."  
  
"Yeah, well, my ears are gently ringing so I guess you kinda got it right."  
  
Shalimar expected Jesse to smirk at that but he was already pressing the speaker part of  
  
the headset to one ear. As he reached up automatically for the microphone, probably intending  
  
to adjust it, his eyes grew wide and his skin paled. It happened so fast that, for a moment, she  
  
thought the light was playing a trick on her. Reality set in when he started screaming into the  
  
receiver, "Charlotte! Charlotte, what's happening!" He kept yelling, growing ever more agitated.  
  
Suddenly, he spun around to face Shalimar. "Prep the Helix. Now." Whatever humor there had  
  
been in his voice mere moments ago was now dead, completely and utterly dead. She wasted  
  
no time in obeying.  
  
"Charlotte, you've got to calm down. I can't understand what you're saying." Jesse spoke  
  
urgently. Listening for a moment, his expression turned ever more grim. At one point, a look of  
  
barely repressed anger and disgust made him seem something inhuman. "Please, Charlotte, help  
  
me out! Say the name again!" The command came in a rush. "Stay calm, its over, just tell me  
  
where you are so I can help you."  
  
Shalimar heard one side of the conversation. Her ears were usually keen enough to pick  
  
up both sides, even at a distance, but not when she was inside of a jet rapidly setting controls  
  
and preparing for flight. Green lights all across the board. Except one. A quick examination  
  
proved it to be a minor problem that wouldn't prevent a take off.  
  
Turning her head, Shalimar glanced back and out of the Double Helix, watching Jesse as  
  
he calmed Charlotte down. She wondered briefly if it was Charlotte Cooke on the line and then  
  
shivered at the thought that it was. After the story Adam and Emma had told them, a panicked  
  
call from her could mean something truly frightening was going down. Plus, she still remembered  
  
the feeling of having her moral polarity reversed. It hadn't been a nice experience. She did not  
  
want to repeat it.  
  
In the moment that thought came to mind, she noticed something about Jesse's facial  
  
expression. Something seemed disturbingly wrong about it. For a moment, Shalimar couldn't  
  
comprehend what she was seeing. Then revelation came and she turned back to the ship's  
  
controls, desperately hoping she was wrong. There was a look on his face that terrified her.  
  
Rage. The look was rage.  
  
Hatred, rage, and an overwhelming need for justice. This was the fabric of soul that now  
  
warped a good man's countenance into that of a demonic entity. Without needing to ask,  
  
Shalimar knew that something horrible had happened.  
  
Pacing now, moving in fits back and forth, so hard and quick that each motion made his  
  
chest ache, Jesse kept talking, trying desperately to make sure Charlotte was safe on her end of  
  
the line. "Charlotte, listen to me, keep moving. Don't you dare stay there for even a second  
  
longer. Go. Get out of the safe house and just move." For a moment, he was tempted to break  
  
the connection to make her obey. He didn't. He was afraid to. Cutting the line felt tantamount  
  
to passing a death sentence. "Hide somewhere safe. I'll find you, don't worry about that."  
  
Unconsciously, his mind went to a passage from the book Hope, and he quoted it aloud without  
  
meaning to. "Go to a place where sorrow knows no hold and angels tread in silence."  
  
On the other end, he heard Charlotte's breath catch in her throat. The passage meant  
  
something to her. She knew it. Without any further delay, she broke the connection to  
  
Sanctuary. At least, he thought she did. It took him just a second to realize that the line had  
  
been cut. The bad guys were still there.  
  
Fear crept in. The empty hiss of the severed line made Jesse's heart grow cold. He felt  
  
that a prayer might help but he didn't have time. He dropped the headset he'd been using, in lieu  
  
of the speaker system, and turned to run for the open hatch of the Double Helix. Quickly, he  
  
took the pilot's chair. His hands instinctively found purpose in activating the hanger doors. As  
  
they rapidly opened, Jesse switched the engine to full and blasted down the runway, exploded  
  
out of the hanger, and flew straight for Charlotte.  
  
"Whoa! Wait a second, what are you doing?" Shalimar asked. She glanced back toward  
  
the illusionary mountain face that hid Sanctuary from view. "Jesse, have you gone crazy?  
  
Shouldn't we have waited for the others?"  
  
For a long time, she had no answers. Jesse stared straight ahead, even though the Helix  
  
could practically fly itself, his eyes focused on whatever lay before them. Then, just as she was  
  
about to ask again, he turned toward her and said, "a safe house was attacked, that's where  
  
we're going. Charlotte said it was bad. We don't have time for explanations or planing. We  
  
have to act." Hatred was in his eyes again, a burning star of darkness in otherwise soothing  
  
pools of languid blue. Shalimar shivered at his next words.  
  
"We're going to save Charlotte ourselves. Heaven have mercy on the fool who tries to stop  
  
us, because I won't."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
END OF PART ONE 


	2. Against A Clock

Part Two  
  
Against A Clock  
  
  
  
  
  
Adam held up two fingers spaced apart by the thickness of a piece of paper, his expression  
  
oddly unreadable.  
  
"I'm having so much fun, I'm this close to killing him."  
  
Sitting alone for the first time in almost an hour, the slightest smile on her face, Emma  
  
replied in a hushed whisper, "you only think you're joking." As she spoke, her eyes darted  
  
around, searching for their host. She sighed and pressed a hand against her forehead, frustrated  
  
and tired, the beginnings of a headache plaguing her. "The worst part is, he really is fun to hang  
  
out with. Any other day and I'd be having a great time."  
  
Another deep sigh passed from her lips. Gently swaying rock music wafted toward them  
  
from the nearby dance floor, along with the rhythmic thrum of moving bodies and tapping feet.  
  
She turned briefly and considered it with a look of deepest longing, the personification of  
  
wanting. So many people were there, smiling and laughing, twirling each other about and loving.  
  
Adam said, "I wanted to spend time with you. Not Brennan Mulwray. I don't care how  
  
great a guy he is. He's pushing me toward the brink of madness." Head in hands, he reminded  
  
Emma of a depressed version of "The Thinker" or some similar statue.  
  
She raised an eyebrow at that thought. Emma knew just how similar to that muscular,  
  
naked statue he really looked. Under those clothes, the veneer of mild scientist, her man was  
  
chiseled muscle. For a moment, a smile took shape. There were so many things about him that  
  
only she knew, little things that most people wouldn't have found that important. Only she knew  
  
them, the simple secrets of a complex man. Emma wasn't the first woman in his life but it was  
  
easy for her to believe that she might be the last.  
  
Gazing at the dance floor almost broke her heart. How she wanted to be on it with Adam,  
  
spinning and twirling and holding on to him. When was the last time she felt such a yearning for a  
  
man? She couldn't remember. The only thing she could think about was the fact that her desires  
  
had to be put on hold while Brennan continued to hang around them like some puppy dog sitting  
  
outside the back door of a butcher's shop, waiting for a scrap of steak.  
  
Sounding obscenely depressed even to herself, she said "same here. This whole situation  
  
would be fine if we'd wanted to party with Brennan. As it is. . . well, I'd love to hit that dance  
  
floor with you but. . . ." She shrugged, as if to say the situation was hopeless.  
  
He nodded. "Exactly my point. If I kill him, we can dance."  
  
"Stop it. You're starting to make me think that would actually be a good idea."  
  
"It is a good idea. It would solve a lot of problems. He is distracting Shalimar lately."  
  
"Adam, you're evil."  
  
"Not likely. Have to talk to Charlotte Cooke about that. Perhaps she could play a role, be  
  
a co-conspirator in our plot against Mr. Mulwray." The slightly elated tone of Adam's voice  
  
might have worried Emma if not for the fact that she understood perfectly how he felt. She  
  
wasn't exactly pleased by Brennan's constant presence. Quite the opposite.  
  
Sighing deeply, Adam shook his head and tapped on the Formica table top. "Listen to me.  
  
I'm going crazy. That man is driving me out of my mind."  
  
Emma smiled at him. "Well, at least you're in good company, because I'm on the express  
  
train to Crazy Town at this point. He hasn't left our side since he walked into the garage. I hate  
  
to say it, but I'm hoping he has a freak accident on the way back from the bar!"  
  
Adam smirked, his vision cast over her shoulder. Pointing, he said "no such luck. Don't  
  
look now, but he's back with the drinks."  
  
"Goody."  
  
Walking up rapidly, balancing three large drinks in his hands, Brennan smiled as he came.  
  
"Hope you two didn't miss me too much. Virgin strawberry daiquiri, made fresh while I  
  
watched, for Ms. Emma." He set the drink down in its chilled crystal glass, an extra berry  
  
serving as a garnish. "A little eyeopener coffee for the boss." Down came a large mug of molten  
  
java. The steam alone was strong enough to make Adam blink in sudden alertness. "And a  
  
glass of the house special for me. Guaranteed good or you can leave."  
  
Brennan slid over Emma to get to his place in the booth. He sat down between them,  
  
seemingly unaware of just how annoying that was. Ever since they'd left Sanctuary, this had  
  
been happening. Walking between them, sitting between them, and always being around them.  
  
Calling him a "third wheel" wasn't enough; Brennan was acting like a blasted wedge.  
  
If she hadn't known better, Emma would have sworn he was doing it on purpose.  
  
"Did you miss me?" He asked, his eyes shining and friendly. It was almost as if he were  
  
inviting them to a share a great joke. The way he smiled made them feel guilty about their earlier  
  
remarks against him. Adam especially.  
  
Even so, they didn't lie and act like they were especially happy he was back. They weren't  
  
happy at all.  
  
"Whoa. Tough crowd." Brennan muttered, taking a long sip of his drink.  
  
  
  
  
  
Watching from the bar, eyes focused on the reflection of the Mutant X teammates, sat a  
  
very handsome man with skin even darker than Adam's coffee. Though his attentions were  
  
elsewhere, he easily caught the bartender's eye with a gesture and an uneasy smile. "No offense  
  
barkeep, but I think you should deflower this girl for me." He tapped his chilled glass that was  
  
almost identical to the one Emma had, except for the fruit used in this virgin daiquiri. His voice  
  
trembled very slightly when he spoke, not enough to seem out of place, but enough to be  
  
noticed.  
  
"Want me to give it a dash of rum after all?" The bartender asked, his voice sounding  
  
oddly mushy. His jaw had been broken a dozen times before now in barroom brawls. Like the  
  
mark of Cain, or a scarlet letter, his voice was now evidence of those many battles over women,  
  
football, and whether lite beer was better than regular beer.  
  
"Rum would be fine." The dark skinned man kept his faded jade eyes on the mirror behind  
  
the bartender. He could see his quarry easily. "If you have to drink anti-freeze, best make it the  
  
kind that tastes sweet. Unless maybe you've got some real Russian vodka lying around?"  
  
Chuckling, the bartender shook his head and moved away to get rum for his customer's  
  
soon-to-be-not-so-virgin daiquiri.  
  
Relatively alone, Devon Bowden, the black man with an almost feminine beauty to his face,  
  
eyes the color of jade sculpture from oriental empires long vanished, whose life and continued  
  
happiness now rested in the hands of others, thought about the series of events that had led him  
  
to this place.  
  
The first thing that came to mind was Katherine Grant, his wife of a year and a sure winner  
  
in a Helen of Troy Look Alike beauty pageant. Without her, Devon might never have been  
  
forced into this position. The mission he'd been given had to be carried out successfully or else.  
  
Katherine meant more to Devon than he could easily put into words. She wasn't just a woman.  
  
She was "the" woman. His boss's deceptions and manipulations put that fact to good use. He  
  
could not expect to see her alive again if he failed to do what he'd been ordered.  
  
"Here you go." The bartender was back. He doused the daiquiri with enough rum to  
  
knock out an army of alcoholic hobos.  
  
"Thanks." Devon tasted, wished he could let himself get stone drunk, then gazed again at  
  
the reflection of his quarry. Studying them in turn, analyzing the way they moved and gestured  
  
while they sat together talking and sipping drinks, he wished he were with Katherine. Alcohol  
  
helping to numb his brain, he memorized Adam's intellectual brow and warm smile, the fatherly  
  
quality the man exuded, the way his face brightened ever so slightly when he looked at Emma.  
  
Next, he studied Brennan, that bad boy grin he flashed easily, that almost Zen quality that made  
  
him always seem both relaxed and on edge. Devon lingered on Emma's face. She was  
  
beautiful, obviously intelligent, and a walking contradiction. Confidence warred with self-doubt,  
  
kindness with a hard edge that lingered below the surface, a woman with secrets that perhaps  
  
not even she knew.  
  
Four years of college courses in psychology, a special course in profiling taught by an FBI  
  
special agent, and three years of private detective work had honed his abilities to analyze people  
  
to near perfection. He didn't need mutant gifts to know what was going on in their minds. He  
  
could read their faces and gestures as easily as a simple children's book.  
  
Devon drank deep from his daiquiri. Soothing warmth exploded deep inside his body as  
  
the alcohol went to work. His mind whirled like a windmill in a tornado, ferrying a perplexed  
  
Don Quixote toward the land of Oz. Soon, he would leave the club. Outside, parked  
  
inconspicuously near a park, was a car which had been provided by his boss. In the trunk lay  
  
his purpose for being at the club. He had two choices. Let Katherine die and save his own soul  
  
or be damned to hell for all eternity, saving his wife from an early tomb.  
  
After a long hesitation, he finished the drink in a few deep gulps, stood up, and walked out  
  
of the bar. He headed straight for the car trunk and opened it. He removed the briefcase. He  
  
carried it to a lonely place. He opened it. He took out the gun, silencer, and ammunition.  
  
"Better my soul than her life." Devon whispered quietly to himself, wondering for just a  
  
second what it would be like to live without Katherine. A tear ran down his cheek. "That's a  
  
price even I wouldn't pay."  
  
  
  
  
  
************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
"We have to go back." Speaking plainly and making sure to emphasize every word,  
  
Shalimar watched Jesse for a sign that he'd heard her. For the last few minutes, she'd been  
  
trying without success to contact the rest of the team. She's spent almost as long trying to get  
  
through to her friend and pilot, who'd barely said a word since leaving Sanctuary. Each  
  
second's passing brought greater foreboding. Why wasn't anyone answering?  
  
A pleading tone entered her voice. "Please, we have to go back and find out what's  
  
happened. Someone should be answering us. I can't get anyone on the comlinks. The Helix's  
  
comm. system is dead too, that can't be a coincidence." The unwavering silence that was her  
  
only reply would have infuriated her, if not for the sheer depth of it. She could not be sure he'd  
  
heard her voice. "Whatever's happening out here, we have to check in with the others.  
  
Something strange is going on. You know I'm right."  
  
She didn't think Jesse would answer her, considering he'd ignored her previous attempts  
  
at a dialogue. Watching him, the set-in-stone expression that ruled his face, Shalimar got chills.  
  
He never acted like this. He was always calm and collected. He was stable. That was what she  
  
liked about him, his enduringly serene nature. This new side of his personality reminded her a  
  
little of herself, but harder, rougher, and far more driven.  
  
Without warning, Jesse slammed a fist down on the controls in front of him. The Double  
  
Helix shuddered like a whipped child, vibrating in pain. For one moment of heart wrenching  
  
terror, they began to plummet. Very calmly, Jesse brought the ship under control. That done,  
  
his calm facade disintegrated like the wings of Icarus. He swung to glare at her, his face  
  
contorted, a roaring tidal storm of emotions barely suppressed by will. "We don't have time to  
  
go back. We didn't have time to wait for anyone, we sure as hell can't go back. Charlotte  
  
needs us."  
  
Shalimar threw her hands up in the air out of sheer frustration. "So that's it, huh? We just  
  
ignore the fact that something is wrong at Sanctuary? For who, for Charlotte? Charlotte Cooke  
  
who turned Adam into a maniac?" A yellow gleam came to her eyes; she snarled too. The  
  
whole situation unnerved her. It was insanity. "I know its been a long time, but have you  
  
forgotten what she did to us?"  
  
"Of course not!" Jesse thundered. Visibly making an effort, he rubbed at his forehead and  
  
tried to calm down. He took a deep breath and nodded back the way they'd come. "Adam,  
  
Emma, Brennan, they've been trained to fight. They go up against death every day and beat the  
  
odds. Charlotte isn't a fighter, not yet." His expression softened faintly. "Do you remember  
  
what they told us, what Adam, and especially what Emma, said? She was a part of Mutant X."  
  
"That future doesn't exist anymore and I can't believe that you'd want any part of it to  
  
remain. Eckhart conquered the world in that time line, or did you forget?"  
  
"Shalimar, I don't think I could possibly make myself ignore something that bad. What I  
  
am trying to get through to you is that, if we don't get to Charlotte ASAP, she's dead." He  
  
looked at her, his gaze piercing in a way she'd never before known it to be. "Do you really want  
  
her blood on your hands? Do you, huh, because I'll be damned if I have to live with that for the  
  
rest of my life." His voice had slowly gone quieter as he spoke. Now, it was barely a whisper  
  
as he said, "we can't let her die. She was a part of Mutant X. I don't care when or how or if it  
  
might ever happen in this world, but I won't let her die. She saved Emma's life in that other  
  
future. In my world, that still counts."  
  
Jesse turned away from her. All focus went back to the sky in front of him, save for a  
  
glance at an electronic G.P.S. readout, which made him frown. He made a minor adjustment in  
  
their course, never looking away from instruments or windshield. They flew in silence like that,  
  
seconds ticking slowly by.  
  
"Look," he said abruptly, turning toward Shalimar. She sighed and looked at him. A  
  
contrite smile formed on his face. "I'm sorry." He seemed more like himself, kind and soft. The  
  
gentle soul inside him was visible again in those big blue eyes. Much of the tension that had been  
  
in his voice could no longer be heard. "I've really messed this up, haven't I?" He looked away  
  
from her, obviously feeling guilty for his earlier outburst.  
  
"A little bit." Shalimar admitted, reaching out to take his hand. "You're right though.  
  
Whatever's happening at Sanctuary, the others can handle it. Assuming anything's wrong at all."  
  
A sheepish smile formed on her face. "I overreacted too. So what if no one's answering back  
  
home? Brennan said something about maybe going into town, Adam probably had some  
  
important research to do and Emma's probably off with her boyfriend."  
  
The words didn't really strike Jesse for a moment, his attentions were still mainly on the  
  
journey to Charlotte. Then he blinked and did a double take straight out of a cartoon. His eyes  
  
grew marginally wider, his brow furrowed in perplexed sudden interest. "Wait, wait, go back to  
  
the part about Emma having a boyfriend."  
  
"Jealous?"  
  
He laughed, a bit darkly. "No, curious. Anything to take my mind off what Charlotte told  
  
me for a few seconds. I keep seeing. . . ." Slipping back into silence, he glanced down at the  
  
G.P.S. readout, and nodded to himself when it verified that they were still perfectly on course.  
  
"Talk. I don't want to think right now."  
  
Instead of obliging him with conversation, Shalimar turned her attention forward. Her eyes  
  
seemed to see far away to their destination; her mind crafted with ample imagination a thousand  
  
scenarios that might have made Jesse act so rashly and so angrily. An air of unease ruled the  
  
inside of the Double Helix. Turning to face her friend, her words barely more than a whisper,  
  
Shalimar said, "back at Sanctuary, you were happy and joking before that call came. Then you  
  
changed. . . it was like someone flipped a switch. I don't think I've ever seen you that upset  
  
before." She touched the G.P.S. readout, let her finger trace the machine's outline. "What did  
  
Charlotte tell you? What's going on?"  
  
Like he had before, Jesse was silent for a time. His eyes said that he'd heard her, but he  
  
did not answer. Tomblike silence stretched long. Then, very quietly, he started to tell her  
  
everything, all the things Charlotte had said in the rapid fire speech of the chased.  
  
Long before he finished, Shalimar was crying.  
  
  
  
  
  
************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
"Go to a place where sorrow knows no hold and angels tread in silence." When she heard  
  
those words, uttered many hundreds of kilometers away, Charlotte's breath caught deep in her  
  
chest. A sensation of unreality enveloped her in a blanket of confusion. She nodded, though  
  
Jesse could not possibly have seen her.  
  
A sudden shower of sparks from a nearby wall accompanied the death of the  
  
communications system. Rattled first by the words and now doubly disturbed, Charlotte spun  
  
around. Her eyes darted left, right, left again. There was only one possible reason why the  
  
system would fail.  
  
Heart pounding so fast that she felt certain it would burst from her chest, she very quietly  
  
stepped away from the console. Shivers raced up and down her spine, a dance of dread fear.  
  
Breathing in short gasps, her ears alert, she started toward the back of the safe house. She felt  
  
like a mouse in a maze. Others lurked in the labyrinth with her, dark ones.  
  
Somewhere nearby, a shattered lamp sparked. Her eyes were drawn there for a moment.  
  
What she saw made her double over and spin away, though she'd seen it before. "Not again.  
  
Don't look at them, damn it. Just don't." Her stomach felt like a fish flip-flopping on the shore.  
  
Even in the relative darkness, she could see too much. She succumbed to horror and vomited,  
  
hating herself for being so weak. "They're all dead," Charlotte sputtered a moment later, trying  
  
to keep herself focused on the situation.  
  
Hand pressed against her mouth, wiping at the saliva around her lips, she looked again at  
  
the crimson stains on the floor. Streaks of blood in vast swaths told a story of death at play.  
  
Her heart felt pierced. In this room were the bodies of three new mutants. Each had been  
  
murdered in a gruesome manner; all had been her friends. Charlotte didn't want to look again  
  
but she forced herself. This time, when her stomach tried to curl up and jump out of her body,  
  
her sense of duty kept her from puking.  
  
Deep inside, Charlotte knew that the killers were still there, still hunting her. Jesse had  
  
ordered her to run but she just couldn't leave her friends, not before she found out why they'd  
  
been taken from the world. No matter how stupid that was, it was what Charlotte was going to  
  
do. It was all she could do for them. She had to know why. And who made it happen. She  
  
had to bring her friends justice.  
  
'Probably just die trying.' She thought sadly, dwelling on her failings and not on her  
  
strengths. 'Still have to make the effort.'  
  
A crash, the skitter crunch of glass underfoot.  
  
Something moved elsewhere within the safe house.  
  
Noises carried down the hallways, loud voices that made no attempt to hide themselves.  
  
The killers. No fear, no remorse, no mercy. They were coming closer, drawing near.  
  
Charlotte looked about her. Near the body of David Cooper, who'd loved to read poetry  
  
and short stories about scary things, lay a shard of jagged metal. It gleamed faintly in the light  
  
from a shower of sparks that shot from the deep puncture in the nearby wall. She fell upon it  
  
with fear in her heart. Gripping the sharp shiv strongly, never noticing how the metal bit deep  
  
into her palms, drawing a flow of blood, Charlotte fell back toward shadows. Her mind raced,  
  
trying to come up with a place to hide.  
  
She knew where Jesse had wanted her to go. How he'd known those words, those  
  
meaningful and special words, she still couldn't figure out. At the moment, all of her thoughts  
  
were focused on survival. And the dead. She couldn't stop thinking about them. She kept  
  
remembering details.  
  
David Cooper had loved the macabre and the eerie. He always had a kind word for  
  
everyone, even her. The first time they'd met, he'd just smiled and shrugged away her sins. He  
  
had brown hair like a deer's fur and eyes so brilliantly blue that they hurt to look at. A faint scar  
  
marred his chin, but otherwise he was a handsome man. Yet, he was painfully shy and spoke  
  
very little. David was a man who'd never hurt anyone.  
  
Still, they'd killed him. Blood filled a deep depression in his skull where one of the men  
  
had struck him over and over again with something heavy and blunt. A talented Psionic, David  
  
died trying to force the attackers out the front door. Charlotte couldn't understand how they  
  
could have murdered him so easily. It didn't seem possible that he could have died like that.  
  
Or Anna. Anna Gates, whose mother had been a model once and whose father was  
  
Greek. When that wedding movie came out, Charlotte teased her mercilessly for a week.  
  
She'd never been mean, it had made them both laugh. That was the kind of person Anna was;  
  
funny and sweet and the best friend a girl could want. She was always willing to lend a  
  
sympathetic ear. Her hair was black, like fresh soot. Her eyes were so dark a shade of brown  
  
that they, too, seemed pure ebony.  
  
Anna hadn't died easily or quickly. She'd been a fighter. A Molecular with the power to  
  
adjust her physical form, her powers hadn't saved her. When they'd come, it looked like she'd  
  
tried to make herself into a hulking behemoth to fight them. Her body was soaked in blood, so  
  
much that Charlotte did not know what had killed her, except that it had been brutal. By the  
  
expression her friend's face, it had also been terrifying.  
  
Yet, it was nothing compared to what they'd done to Kari Morgan. Charlotte hadn't  
  
known her very well. Kari had preferred being alone. Sometimes, when she couldn't sleep,  
  
Kari would spend hours sitting out on the safe house's balcony, watching the stars. That was  
  
where Charlotte had seen her last and that was how she wanted to remember her.  
  
She didn't want to ever think of her dead. Not after what they'd done to her. Even a  
  
violent death, a sickeningly brutal death, was better than the horror Kari had endured before  
  
they'd finally finished her off. A very neat and clean hole in her forehead told how. Torn clothes  
  
strewn about screamed of worse things. She hadn't even been able to use her powers to fight  
  
with. All she could do was see in different spectrums of light. Harmless.  
  
Everyone had died this night. Four more bodies were spread out in different rooms, laying  
  
in deep shadows. They'd fought for their lives, tried to save each other. One by one they'd  
  
fallen, murdered by men in black suits. Everyone had died. Everyone that mattered was gone,  
  
lost forever to an uncaring darkness.  
  
Not Charlotte though.  
  
She'd been out. She hadn't been there to die with them. While her best friends in the  
  
world were fighting for their lives, fighting and losing, she'd been watching a movie. An old  
  
action film. The people in the movie died but got to go home after the credit's final roll. In real  
  
life, Charlotte got to live until she got home. Now the killers were drawing close to her, playing  
  
their role better than their film counterparts ever could have.  
  
There was only one thing going for Charlotte. The bastards weren't even trying to hide  
  
themselves. She'd seen them, but they hadn't seen her.  
  
How that advantage could be put to use, she still hadn't quite figured out. She wasn't a  
  
fighter, though once upon a time she'd caused Mutant X a spot of trouble, and even armed with  
  
the sharp metal in her hand, Charlotte had no illusions about her chances of survival. They had  
  
guns and murderous black hearts. Her powers were useless too, despite a recent mutation,  
  
because they required physical contact with the enemy. Close quarters were out of the question.  
  
She had no intention of ending up like Kari.  
  
Another crash nearby. "Are you sure she came back here? Can't imagine anyone coming  
  
back. This place is an abattoir, Duncan." The words came from another room, they echoed  
  
around in the den. Charlotte held her makeshift weapon close, blood from her hand staining her  
  
shirt. Carefully, trying to be as quiet as a corpse, she hid under the overturned couch as the  
  
voices came even closer. "Seriously, you'd have to be either Grade-A dumb or just plain  
  
desperate to come back here."  
  
"I find you're lack of chronological comprehension astounding." Another killer answered  
  
back, presumably Duncan, in a cold voice that wouldn't have been out of place coming from the  
  
lips of the Terminator. It chilled Charlotte's soul, as if by hearing the words she was bing  
  
infected by evil. "Cooke just got back from her movie perhaps six minutes ago. Her first  
  
response was probably to scream. Her second, to cry. If we hadn't had to eliminate that police  
  
unit the Morgan girl called, we could already have captured her."  
  
"Not my fault." Simon answered back in an angry whisper. "After what I did to her, how  
  
was I supposed to know she'd still have her wits intact?"  
  
The other killer continued in a dispassionate voice, as if he hadn't even been paying  
  
attention to his partner. "Then Cooke called Adam's people, this Mutant X team. Now, if our  
  
employer's intelligence may be trusted, the heros are on their way. We have to have Cooke in  
  
our custody before they get here or we lose the advantage." There was a short pause. Then  
  
Duncan spoke again in a tone laced with icy interest. "Now, Simon, I want you to tell me what  
  
an abattoir is because I've never heard that word before."  
  
"Slaughterhouse." Simon the murderer replied.  
  
"Ah. Fitting." Duncan the psycho responded.  
  
"Please, Jesse, please hurry." Charlotte the frightened prayed.  
  
  
  
  
  
************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
"Harrison! Where are you?" Gabriel Ashlocke called out, his booming voice filling the  
  
cavernous interior of the old museum base. Several Links heard him but pretended not to. He  
  
wasn't calling for them and no one hated to appear weak more than Gabriel Ashlocke. "Doc, I  
  
swear, if you've run away. . . ." Feral glow coming to his eyes, he started walking down a long  
  
hallway lined with forgotten artworks, feeling more like a hunter on the prowl than a patient in  
  
search of his doctor.  
  
Watching him pass through their ranks, many of the Strand's members were disturbed by  
  
his appearance. In the past few weeks, since learning that he was dying, Gabriel had been  
  
inconsolable. He hadn't eaten or slept much. Though his powers allowed him to go much longer  
  
without food or rest than an ordinary new mutant, he was now treading on dangerous ground.  
  
His face was sallow and his eyes lacked much of their former strength. Every battle in which he  
  
or his forces faced Mutant X was a dismal failure as well. Everyone that saw him could see the  
  
fear that lived on his face and in his eyes.  
  
Gabriel Ashlocke, dread Patient Zero, the first child of Genomex, was terrified.  
  
On some level, he knew his followers were losing faith in him. By ones and twos, Links  
  
kept trying to escape from him. Capturing them and putting their rebellious hearts to rest took  
  
ever more of Gabriel's concentration, because he could not stop thinking about death. He felt  
  
hunted in a way that seemed terribly unfair.  
  
"I've never been afraid in my entire life." Gabriel whispered as he stopped for a moment  
  
in an empty corridor, his hands balling into fists at his side. "I'm a god. A god among pathetic  
  
mice that scurry about and call themselves a civilization. I can't die. It's not fair." Those last  
  
words came to his mind all the time now. Had he possessed something even approximating  
  
common human empathy, rather than just a Psionic's gift for playing mind games, Gabriel would  
  
have realized that every person he'd ever killed had thought the same thing before they died.  
  
"It's not fair."  
  
Rather than thinking, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. 'Where are you Doc?'  
  
He thought in powerful psychic waves that flew out from his mind and slide through the corridors  
  
of the museum, hunting prey like some enormous gelatinous beast. Room by room his mind  
  
searched better than eyes ever could. Even Feral eyes could not match the power of the mutant  
  
mind. Still, it wasn't enough to make a man appear who wasn't there.  
  
"Damn it!" Gabriel roared and cast an Elemental energy ball out, smashing an abandoned  
  
piece of modern sculpture to dust. Without hesitation, he heaved another down the hall to  
  
destroy a painting. Then another to put a hole in a nearby wall. Gabriel threw energy balls  
  
around until he slumped down. finally feeling drained and dead.  
  
Back against a wall, exhaustion and frustration filled him. None of his plans had worked  
  
out. Every day brought him a step closer to the grave without even the illusion of hope.  
  
Slamming his head back against the wall, because the pain meant he was still alive, Gabriel swore  
  
fiercely and with great creativity.  
  
Never in his life had he felt anything other than smug superiority. Many years ago, when  
  
he came home from Genomex with all his powers, a quadr-mutant, he'd felt that arrogance  
  
justified. That was why he'd killed the fools who called themselves his parents. They treated  
  
him like a stupid brat, not like a son. They were inferior. Useless. Nothing more.  
  
Now, he felt a deep and disturbing sensation of envy. "Everyone else in the world gets to  
  
live thinking they're going to be running around forever. Why not me?" The words were naive  
  
on many levels, but in the ears of a man like Gabriel Ashlocke, they sounded deeply  
  
philosophical and bitterly resentful.  
  
"Gabriel? Are you alright?"  
  
The voice made him look up from the floor. Something must have gotten into his eyes for  
  
his vision was blurry. He blinked away tears, having no memory of crying them and not wanting  
  
to admit they were even his. Kelly Rice, looking concerned, stood nearby. For a moment, he  
  
admired her beauty, the lovely lines of her body and the enchanting features of her face. Then,  
  
as he stood and tried to act like the god he was, Gabriel sighed and spoke in a voice that  
  
sounded depressingly pessimistic. "What is it Kelly?"  
  
She came closer to him. "I lost the Clark girl." Her voice was very quiet and afraid. All  
  
the Links feared Gabriel's punishments.  
  
To her shock, he merely nodded. "Figures." Molecular powers kicking in to heal the  
  
bruise he'd given himself striking his head against the wall, he started to walk away.  
  
Kelly reached out and touched Gabriel's arm, something no Link ever did without express  
  
permission. Surprised, he turned back toward her. He felt no ruthless rancor rising to strike her  
  
down nor was he particularly comforted by the concern she showed. Gabriel expected nothing  
  
less from his followers. "I found this in Dr. Clark's lab. One of his 'failed' experiments." She  
  
handed him a test-tube filled with a bluish slime.  
  
Slowly, Gabriel's mouth curled into a grin. "The Doc should have stuck around. He might  
  
have been the one to do something right instead of you." He reached out and ran his fingers  
  
through Kelly's blonde hair, making her practically coo with happiness. Recently, he had begun  
  
to question whether or not she was useful to his cause. Now, he had his answer.  
  
"You're lucky." Gabriel said as he leaned in to kiss Kelly, indulging himself in the feeling  
  
of her body as she stepped forward to press herself against him. Without this success, he  
  
doubted that she would still be alive. "More than you'll ever know."  
  
He whispered the words so sweetly, Kelly never considered their meaning.  
  
  
  
  
  
************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
Alone in his home office, Dr. David Clark poured over his notes and, piece by piece,  
  
painstakingly recreated the experiments he'd been conducting before he'd ever heard of Gabriel  
  
Ashlocke. Retrieving a computer disk from the box of materials Mutant X had rescued, he  
  
paused and considered his rather unsavory comments toward them. He hadn't meant to vent his  
  
frustrations so vehemently. His words had been cruel.  
  
He did not, for one moment, regret them. He believed humans should always stay humans,  
  
maintain their species purity. Anything that involved manipulating DNA struck him as an  
  
abomination to the ultimate achievement of the universe. Though he was an atheist, Clark  
  
considered humanity a conscious creation, a special race set above all other life.  
  
In his mind, the goal of the human race was to unlock its hidden power. What could be  
  
accomplished if everyone used their entire brain rather than a fraction of it? Earlier experiments  
  
had been aimed at finding the answer to that question, but he'd met with too many failures to  
  
continue. His last two subjects had died during the procedures.  
  
Those deaths were blessings in disguise though, for they pushed him in the direction of his  
  
current crop of projects. Learning of the existence of new mutants had been a shock that still  
  
made him queasy, but it helped his work too. It gave him a focus.  
  
So far, nine out of eleven trials had been a success.  
  
"That means nine mutant freaks won't be around to pollute the race. Too bad I couldn't  
  
do anything about Mutant X." Clark mumbled to himself as he inserted a computer disk into his  
  
machine and started running down a list of files on it.  
  
"Still," an amused tone crept in, "I do owe Kane's pack of anomalies for fetching this box  
  
for me. I could have wasted years trying to put all this back together without it. Time better spent  
  
on cleansing the earth of them." A predatory grin formed on his face. "Some mutant lynch mob  
  
will tear that arrogant race traitor to shreds when they find out he's responsible for my work  
  
coming into being so soon."  
  
Typing in a sequence, he focused on the task at hand. His computer, an amalgam of  
  
various components from numerous sources, hummed while it obeyed his commands. That was  
  
how it should be, real humans being served by their inferiors. Clark glanced wistfully to the large  
  
red and black flag that hung down over his bedroom doorway, hearing in his mind a chanting  
  
crowd rasing one arm in the air in salute.  
  
A beeping noise brought him back to himself. "Let's see what we have here." He clicked  
  
on an icon and, within seconds, a video clip loaded. A simple black rectangle with rounded  
  
edges appeared on the screen, its meaning clear to Clark. It was one symbol of his delightful  
  
work. "This should be fun to watch."  
  
"What should be dad?" Tiffany Clark asked as she came into the office, dragging behind  
  
her a bag of trash. She abandoned her chores instantly, walking quickly to his side. "Can I  
  
watch, please dad, can I?"  
  
"Of course sweetheart. Take a seat." A gesture directed her to a nearby stool. "This is  
  
from the experiment I'm working on right now. Government project, very hush hush." He  
  
grinned and put an arm around his daughter's shoulders, pulling her closer, as if she were his wife  
  
rather than his child. "I know you can keep your mouth shut about it. Right?" His voice was  
  
kind enough, but when he asked, his hand gripped Tiffany's shoulder a little harder, knuckles  
  
going faintly white with pressure.  
  
"I can keep a secret." She said casually. "Come on, I want to see!"  
  
Grinning, Clark reached out and pressed a key with an overly theatrical flourish of his  
  
hand. A few seconds of darkness passed on the screen. Then, quite suddenly and surprisingly,  
  
a bright white lab appeared. There were three people standing around in a circle. A nasally  
  
voice provided commentary.  
  
"Experiment number Twenty-Four commencing on the second hour of the fifth day of  
  
June, third year of the project. First testing of gas Schrader's Folly on mutant subject. Gerhard  
  
Schrader is the German scientist credited with discovering Saran nerve agent."  
  
Tiffany rolled her eyes. "Boring." She said, extending the rolling R sound for a long time.  
  
"Fast forward through this to the good part!"  
  
"Quiet, it's coming." Clark muttered, pointing as a woman strapped in a wheelchair was  
  
pushed into the room by a man in a black suit. Gauze and medical tape covered her mouth and  
  
eyes, her ears were plugged, only her nose was unobstructed. She had medium length brown  
  
hair and wore only a thin hospital robe. Despite being moved around in a harsh and jerky  
  
manner, she did not seem to be aware of where she was. Once, she had been lovely. Minimal  
  
care had reduced her weight and appearance to skeletal.  
  
Again, the nasally voice began to speak. "Subject's name is Pamela Fries, formerly an  
  
agent of the covert Genetic Security Agency. At some time after the massacre at the Genomex  
  
corporation, the GSA's public face, subject was rendered brain dead by unknown mutant  
  
assailant. Damage to sensory organs of sight, taste, and hearing have not been able to heal,  
  
prompting coverings. Response to Schrader's Folly expected to be termination." On the screen,  
  
Dr. Clark walked in from off camera and motioned for the other scientists to move away and  
  
man various machines.  
  
Watching himself, Clark could not help but smirk. This was his project, his dream coming  
  
to life. A dream of a world where only the purist humans would survive. The recording voiced  
  
his thoughts even as he had them. "This gas will reshape the world. If it has no effect on pure  
  
humans, it will be our greatest weapon against the menace of mutant animals." On screen, he  
  
nodded to a scientist who reached out and pulled a heavy lever. Suddenly, thick clouds of  
  
reddish fog swarmed in around Dr. Clark's feet from vents. Moving swiftly under foot, it rolled  
  
and billowed and started to rise.  
  
As it reached Pamela's nose, she started to twitch, her body reacting instinctively to the  
  
pernicious tang of the air. With every breath, more movement. After less than ten seconds, she  
  
began to spasm, jerking in the chair as if suddenly trying to escape. Twenty seconds passed and  
  
the gas dissipated steadily, while Pamela slowly stopped moving, her limbs going even limper  
  
than they had been. Before half a minute was gone, Dr. Clark checked her pulse and grinned.  
  
"Subject terminated. Monitoring will begin of myself and all who have breathed the gas. If  
  
we live, Schrader's Folly will have succeeded in becoming the first example of genetically  
  
targeted poison gas. Mutants are the first step toward exterminating all impure and inferior  
  
breeds of human to ensure that human evolution will not stall. We shall cleanse the world of the  
  
small minded, the weak, the infirm, and the mad. Schrader's Folly will burn out all who dare  
  
oppose the glorious reign of true humanity."  
  
As the video ended, Dr. David Clark pulled away from his daughter and smiled at her,  
  
expecting praise for his brilliance.  
  
Instead, Tiffany looked up at her father, who was quite a bit taller than her even sitting  
  
down, with eyes that gleamed with worry and nervous dread. "Dad, um, did you have any of  
  
that stuff in your office? Like, a liquid form or something that just looked like it?" She asked,  
  
anxiously rubbing her aching shoulder. Where his hand had been, there would be a new  
  
bruise. It wouldn't be lonely for long.  
  
"Why?" His eyes narrowed and turned cold. A darkness crept into them. "What did you  
  
do?" He asked in a chilling whisper no daughter, no person, should ever hear.  
  
"Nothing!" Hands raised defensively, she stood up and took a step backward, obviously  
  
afraid. It wasn't that she hadn't known her father was capable of killing. He'd told her plenty  
  
about his efforts, and those of his organization, to purify humanity through eugenics and selective  
  
murder. After explaining the whole idea, she'd even begun to agree with him. Tiffany was,  
  
however, fully aware that sometimes his research made him crazy.  
  
She had scars to prove it.  
  
Deciding that the best way to put her concerns about his research forward was to be blunt,  
  
Tiffany said, "I found a syringe filled with red stuff in your office and I stabbed that blonde mutant  
  
with it. She didn't die. I thought she was going to, but she didn't."  
  
At her words, Clark relaxed. "Oh. Yes, that." He sighed and shook his head. "Slight  
  
problem with the first batch. The gene-specific programing wasn't done right, the gas targeted  
  
the wrong genes. The effects were. . . not what we intended." Turning back toward his  
  
computer, Clark started to sort through his research again.  
  
"Don't worry honey. You didn't do anything wrong." He spoke in a lifeless tone that did  
  
nothing to alleviate Tiffany's worries, but she nodded and left the office anyway.  
  
Watching her go out of the corner of his eyes, her father sighed again. "Too many  
  
mistakes in the beginning. But we've got it now." He reached into the box and pulled out a  
  
test-tube filled with a red fluid with a black label. In his hand, it felt like distilled power. A dark  
  
grin of twisted faith came to his eyes as he whispered, "Hitler would be proud."  
  
  
  
  
  
************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
"Harrison would be proud." Gabriel said warmly as he watched Kelly work at the lab  
  
station, running three different tests simultaneously. A bemused smirk formed on his face. "All  
  
this time, I had no idea he was teaching you his job. To think I almost. . . ah, but that's not  
  
important now." For a moment, Gabriel had almost been prepared to inform his rather clueless  
  
charge that she'd come perilously close to having her death date marked on a calender. Instead,  
  
he chuckled to himself and watched the way Kelly's hips swayed while she worked.  
  
In the last few minutes, they'd learned a great deal about the vial of goo she'd acquired  
  
from Dr. Clark's warehouse. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to be very useful to him. It might  
  
have been useful back when he was a child, before Adam's failed procedure.  
  
Strangely, although the medicine was useless to him, Gabriel felt himself restored by its  
  
discovery. With his renewed sense of hope came an overflowing of fondness for Kelly.  
  
'She's something,' he thought to himself as he watched her running new tests to make  
  
absolutely certain the medicine could not be used in the present. 'Maybe I was too hasty in  
  
planning her funeral. She has been more loyal to me than Morgan ever could have been.'  
  
Gabriel's eyes roved up and down the blonde's body. 'Better in bed too.'  
  
Unaware of either the negative or positive thoughts running through her master's head,  
  
Kelly was deep in her own considerations. She felt worthless for failing to retrieve a medicine  
  
that could save Gabriel. Yet, her heart fluttered with happiness, because he was smiling and  
  
sounding strong again. She thought he was impressed by her knowledge of Dr. Kenneth  
  
Harrison's lab too. That made her positively giddy.  
  
As she worked, Kelly could feel Gabriel's eyes upon her, the hunger and lust burning in  
  
them. He looked at all the pretty Links that way. She knew he did. Knowing he wasn't a  
  
monogamous deity didn't detract from her own desires. Gabriel was a force of nature, powerful  
  
and intoxicating, unlike any other man she'd ever known. Every time he came back for the  
  
pleasure of her body, her voice, her love, Kelly felt herself elevated by him, and not merely to  
  
blissfully dizzying heights of physical ecstasy. When they were together, she felt more than mere  
  
passionate fulfillment; she felt greatness and a yearning to be like Gabriel.  
  
Even though it wasn't possible for someone as weak as herself to have such power, Kelly  
  
liked to dream.  
  
"Useless." Her voice held a note of disappointment, but not of the crushing sort. Spirts  
  
buoyed by Gabriel's lust, and the not-quite-victory she'd achieved, Kelly was surprisingly  
  
optimistic. "We'll find something. A cure must exist for what's happening to you." She turned  
  
back to face him, Patient Zero, and couldn't help but shiver in his presence. "We will save you  
  
and defeat all your enemies. You're the most powerful mutant who has ever lived, a god  
  
amongst us, and we will not let anything harm you."  
  
Gabriel nodded after a moment. He was feeling more and more like his old self, smug  
  
confidence and warranted arrogance filling him, empowering him. Standing in the lab, amongst  
  
the various sundry items of modern medicine, the crowning achievement of Genomex's scientists,  
  
Gabriel suddenly threw back his head and laughed.  
  
Every thundering guffaw rolled over memories of fear and foolish depression. "Thank  
  
you, Kelly, for reminding me that I have friends here. I had begun to doubt that anyone  
  
understood or cared what I have been going through." His eyes sparkled with more than just  
  
mirth, Feral light glimmered there. "In the great mosaic of my plans, you have just guaranteed  
  
yourself a place of honor. I've been wasting away here, feeling sorry for myself." His face  
  
clouded at that admission.  
  
"I never lost faith in you." Kelly whispered, reaching out to touch his hand. She hoped he  
  
wouldn't think about how she'd tried to escape once upon a time. It was in the past, but still too  
  
recent for comfort.  
  
She didn't want him to consider her recent brush with temptation either. Jesse Kilmartin  
  
had almost fooled her into leaving the Strand and Gabriel. Kelly had no illusions about what  
  
would happen if she was foolish enough to tell him of her weakness. The "example" he'd made  
  
of Morgan was still fresh in her mind.  
  
Thinking at him, Kelly tried to send a subconscious command. 'Please don't bring up  
  
anything that will embarrass me. Please don't.'  
  
Gabriel obliged her by failing to leave his favorite subject: himself.  
  
"I have let myself believe I was beaten. When the Clark situation came to my attention, I  
  
planned the attack dispassionately and without interest. That was a mistake." He turned his eyes  
  
upon Kelly and she felt his mind caressing her own. The sensation thrilled her. It was unlike any  
  
other feeling, as if a thousand tiny fairy fingers were gently massaging her soul, and she let out a  
  
tiny noise of enjoyment.  
  
Gabriel sighed with contentment. Carefully, he made changes in the way his follower's  
  
mind worked. Every one of the Links experienced this. The risk of losing control of them was  
  
too great. Until he was whole again, Gabriel would not dare relinquish the Strand. He needed  
  
them.  
  
There were many reasons he needed the Strand. A very specific one came to mind as he  
  
finished reworking Kelly's mind to keep her loyal. He grinned, disarming and charming without  
  
any remorse, and drew closer to her. "My life isn't over yet," he grabbed Kelly, pulled her into  
  
his arms. Their eyes met as he started passionately and ravenously kissing her. She matched his  
  
intensity easily. When they broke apart, Gabriel ran a hand slowly through her blonde hair,  
  
making her ache with need. "Time I stopped acting like I'm already dead. We've got work to  
  
do. Clark must be stopped. A cure must be found."  
  
He took Kelly into his arms, lifting her up so that their mouths met in a delicate kiss. She  
  
nibbled on his lower lip. Urgently, Gabriel carried her to his bedroom beside the lab. As they  
  
practically fell through the doorway, the need for each other became overpowering and all  
  
consuming.  
  
They didn't make it to the bed.  
  
Someone was waiting for them in the room. He stood by a pile of pillows, Gabriel's latest  
  
taste in sleeping style, appearing unsurprised by the two of them crashing in. A white lab coat  
  
billowed about his body in the faint breeze from an overhead vent. His eyes were slightly  
  
protruding, creating a disturbingly credible image of what a toad would look like as a human  
  
being. Thinning grey hair on his head clashed with a neat black chin beard.  
  
Gabriel and Kelly were so shocked by the presence of this man that neither said or did  
  
anything about him. Except stare. They did a lot of staring in the space of six seconds.  
  
"Mr. Ashlocke?" The man asked. His voice was quiet, mildly wispy, but also savagely  
  
cold and intense. When he received no answer, he shrugged. "I presume you are Mister  
  
Gabriel Ashlocke, Patient Zero, the first of the Genomex children. Assuming I am correct, I have  
  
a message for you." The man reached into his coat and pulled out a plain grey envelope.  
  
Casually, as if this were a common event, Gabriel took it, never letting go of Kelly, though  
  
he'd forgotten he was carrying her. With surprising ease, he opened the letter and began to  
  
read. His eyes tracked slowly toward the end. They lingered on an odd symbol at the bottom.  
  
"Double Helix." He muttered. Two S's had been intertwined to make them seem less  
  
initials and more a picture. "What is this?" Raising his head as he asked, Gabriel blinked in  
  
surprise.  
  
The man had disappeared.  
  
"What is it?" Kelly asked, reminding Gabriel that she was still in his arms.  
  
He looked into her eyes and smiled. "Nothing to worry about. Just a friend telling us  
  
where to find Dr. Clark, his hell spawn daughter, and his new invention." Gabriel sighed and  
  
shook his head, bemused again but very pleasantly so. "Let's celebrate the good news."  
  
  
  
  
  
************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
Striding about the den as if he owned the safe house, Duncan Ladd searched in the  
  
darkness for a sign that Charlotte Cooke had been there. He avoided the freshest, and thus the  
  
wettest, blood stains and kept his hands wrapped tightly in handkerchiefs while he worked.  
  
Fussily precise in all things, he meticulously sifted through rubble yet managed to avoid getting  
  
any dust or blood on his jet black suit.  
  
Simon, on the other hand, took great pleasure in kicking corpses out of the way and  
  
smashing what little still remained intact. "Must you do that?" Duncan asked when his partner  
  
gleefully swatted a porcelain statuette to the floor.  
  
"No. I just like it, that's all." Standing a few meters away from Duncan, the other man  
  
casually stomped the figurine out of existence, seeming to relish the sound of grinding powder.  
  
"You're too uptight." He said with a laugh.  
  
Frowning, Duncan gave him a look. A military man would have called it sniper's eyes. It  
  
was a look that said two things; don't mess with me and if you do, I will make you pay. "Our  
  
employer," he freighted those words with enough importance to elevate them to holy scripture,  
  
"wanted this to be a clean capture, not a massacre. Now, assuming Cooke hasn't managed to  
  
elude us, we must focus our energies on capturing her."  
  
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Simon waved away his partner's concerns. "Whatever. Hey, give me  
  
a hand with this couch. The blueprints I studied before we came here said there was an entrance  
  
to the basement under some floorboards." He leaned down and reached under to get a grip.  
  
"Maybe our diminutive babe's hiding—."  
  
He never finished that sentence. The moment Charlotte, who'd been hiding under the  
  
couch since the men entered the room, saw an opening, she struck. Improvised or not, her metal  
  
fragment made a decent knife. It cut deep and long, opening a gash in Simon's side large enough  
  
to put an arm through and have room on all sides. Sputtering in surprise and pain, he fell  
  
backwards, a hand clutching at his wound, as Charlotte used her legs to heave the big couch  
  
away. With practiced speed and grace, she leapt to her feet. She saw an opening, a chance to  
  
escape, and started running as fast as she could.  
  
Behind her, Charlotte heard Duncan cursing angrily, his voice still disturbingly machinelike,  
  
and a sound that made her force greater speed from her body. It sounded like something  
  
loading, almost like a gun, only there was an electric hum. She knew that sound from her very  
  
brief time as a member of the GSA.  
  
It was a subdermal governor implanting device purring to life.  
  
"Hit that bitch!" The words sounded wet and, had anyone actually been paying him any  
  
attention, they would have seen spittle and blood running from the corner of Simon's mouth.  
  
Regardless of everyone's lack of concern, he was badly injured. "Mute her mutant powers then  
  
give her to me."  
  
Eyebrow raised in a smirk, Duncan glanced at his partner again, that same deathly gleam  
  
in his eyes. "Our employer wants her unharmed." Rasing a weapon which looked more like a  
  
pistol than an implanting tool for governors, he took careful aim, and pulled the trigger. From the  
  
barrel came a sound like a loud, flat cough. A glittery metal object streamed out, trailing white  
  
smoke. It struck Charlotte in the back of the neck and knocked her flat on the floor. When she  
  
struggled to rise, Duncan reached into his suit and pulled out a remote. Charlotte saw and barely  
  
choked down a gasp. She knew what was coming. He pressed a button and made her shriek in  
  
agony. Her hands went to the governor and tried to tear it away.  
  
Again, he brought the pain.  
  
Tears pouring from her eyes, Charlotte lay still, praying for a miracle. A sharp kick to her  
  
ribs brought a groan of misery. She turned over and found herself staring at Duncan's  
  
uninvolved face. He would have looked no different were he standing in line at a grocery store.  
  
Then, quite suddenly, his face twisted into a smile. "It just occurred to me, we were told  
  
to bring you back unharmed. No one said you had to be untouched." He looked toward his  
  
injured partner who was on his feet, barely, and shuffling over with an evil leer. One hand was  
  
pressed tightly to his stomach, holding organs inside, trying to keep blood loss to a minimum. He  
  
looked horrible but far from dead. He looked like wild dog circling prey.  
  
"After what you've done to him, I think Simon deserves a little fun, don't you?"  
  
Charlotte glared back at them both, her gaze one of pure hatred and revulsion. Inside, she  
  
felt all of her fear melt away. It died in the fires of the rage that now filled her heart and eyes. In  
  
a very matter-of-fact tone, she said, "if I live through this, you're dead."  
  
As the killers laughed, something exploded outside.  
  
"What they hell was that?" Simon spun around and nearly lost his balance, stumbling  
  
sideways into a wall, leaving a thick stain of red. Confidence leaked from him when he saw.  
  
Time was running down, running out.  
  
Charlotte took advantage of their distraction. The aftershocks of pain from the governor  
  
made her legs and arms numb, but she forced them to work. As quietly as she could, she  
  
dragged herself across the floor. Each breath she took seared her lungs. Something felt broken  
  
inside. The governor felt tighter, as if it were gripping her neck and spinal cord, trying to pinch  
  
the life out of her. Tears streamed down Charlotte's cheeks as she moved. Some were from  
  
fear. Some from pain. Most were born of hatred and a burning fury, a need to stop being  
  
weak, to turn around and strike the two murderers down.  
  
Without looking back at her, Duncan raised the remote and pressed a button. Electric  
  
agony surged through every nerve and fried every synapses inside Charlotte's body. She  
  
screamed in agony.  
  
Simon coughed blood, his mouth slightly pink with froth. A coldness was seeping into his  
  
body along with an empty hollow feeling. Dread passed into his heart. "Damn it. I think I'm  
  
dying."  
  
"I suppose you want me to cry?" Duncan asked, his left eyebrow kinking up in a gesture  
  
of pure contempt. A chuckle escaped his lips. No mirth, only savage unmerciful disgust. "You  
  
are such a pathetic waste. Why our employer ever bothered with a boy like you, I can only  
  
speculate." Duncan's face was an impervious mask of unconcern. "Regardless of his reasoning,  
  
you have failed miserably in this assignment. You jeopardized the mission for your personal  
  
amusement. Disgraceful. I should have done this before. For plausible deniability." With callous  
  
briskness, he reached into his coat and drew a heavy caliber pistol.  
  
"What are you—?" Before the word 'doing' could escape from Simon's mouth, a great  
  
roar filled the safe house. Simon collapsed bonelessly.  
  
Charlotte shuddered as her would-be rapist's eyes landed directly in line with her own.  
  
Body aching, blood racing, she managed to roll over, to escape the dead man's gaze. As she  
  
did, she saw a mosaic of bone and brain mixed with crimson, an artwork from hell placed on the  
  
safe house wall.  
  
"In case your interested," Duncan spoke in an earnestly concerned voice, "I set a number  
  
of perimeter mines before we came in. A precaution against Mutant X's interference." He  
  
turned toward the nearest window and glanced outside, his expression momentarily unreadable.  
  
Then, quite suddenly, he started to laugh. He turned toward Charlotte, cold eyes pinning her  
  
down and making her freeze in place. "I believe their ship was called the Double Helix." Wry  
  
amusement brought out a ferocious and ghoulish grin. "The Scrap Metal Pile would be a more  
  
fitting designation now."  
  
Outside, another and much larger explosion occurred.  
  
It made the whole building tremble. . . as if a plane had just crashed nearby. Or rather, its  
  
fuel tank had gone up after it had crashed.  
  
"Look's like you're friends had a little accident."  
  
Horror filled Charlotte as she realized what must have happened. "Oh God. Jesse. . .  
  
they're dead. You bastard, you killed them!" She was prevented from hurling herself at the killer  
  
by yet another governor induced pain that filled her body. Duncan watched her much like a man  
  
might examine a bug before crushing it underfoot.  
  
He returned his pistol to a shoulder holster but kept hold of the governor remote. "It's  
  
time to go Ms. Cooke. You're days of menacing humanity are over."  
  
  
  
  
  
Broken.  
  
Slagged.  
  
Destroyed.  
  
The words rolled lazily through the mind of Shalimar Fox as she drifted. Nothingness  
  
surrounded her, embraced her. She felt pleasantly numb, but knew it wouldn't last much longer.  
  
Her sensitive Feral nose twitched, her eyelids skinned back. The stench of fuel burning and  
  
sizzling oil invaded her nostrils and burned her eyes. Something wet struck her face. When she  
  
reached to wipe it away, she realized that she couldn't move her right arm. The left seemed fine,  
  
though, so she doubted she'd been paralyzed.  
  
Devastated.  
  
Injured.  
  
Crushed.  
  
Shalimar groaned and lifted herself up as best she could. Her right arm was pinned  
  
beneath one of the other chairs. The interior of the Double Helix had been remodeled rather  
  
drastically by. . . she wasn't sure by what. "What in God's name happened?"  
  
From nearby, a masculine moan.  
  
"Jesse? Are you okay?"  
  
"No. But I'm alive." The answer came from just a couple of meters ahead of her, but  
  
Shalimar could not see him. A thick black cloud of smoke outside, probably from the fuel tank  
  
that had very nearly delivered them their heavenly reward, also blocked all light. She was too  
  
shaken by the explosion, the second today, to think about her night vision.  
  
Jesse hissed in pain. "I'm not sure that's such a good thing, but I am alive." His voice  
  
was strong like her's, no evidence that he was masking pain or pretending to be in better shape  
  
than he really was.  
  
"Can you move?" Since she wasn't inclined to chew her arm off at the elbow, that was a  
  
very important question to Shalimar. No matter how much more Feral she'd gotten since her  
  
mutation grew stronger, she still wasn't going to eat Mrs. Benedict's steak tartar nor was she  
  
going to gnaw off a limb like some trapped animal. If they were both pinned, however, they'd  
  
either have to wait for help or free themselves by just such drastic measures. Both were  
  
unlikable alternatives to Jesse being able to play the hero.  
  
"Yeah. I think I can move." There came a series of rustling and crunching sounds; Jesse  
  
tested his hypothesis and found it sound. He came into view when he moved, his body parting  
  
the black smoke for a second or two. His clothes were singed and sooty, but otherwise nothing  
  
seemed wrong. When he saw Shalimar, he jerked in shock, then relaxed. "Whew. I thought  
  
that was blood on your face."  
  
Shalimar frowned and then remembered the liquid that had dripped on to her just a  
  
moment before. She glanced down at her hand. Even in the inky pitch inside the Helix, she  
  
could tell it was a special oil Adam had concocted. Memory told her it was, indeed, very much  
  
the color of a vampire's dinner.  
  
Jesse drew near and leaned down. He checked her. "I'll phase the chair. We've got to  
  
hurry, before the people after Charlotte get away."  
  
"Or come after us."  
  
"Whatever. We still need to hurry." As he touched the chair and took a deep breath, as  
  
Shalimar pulled her arm loose and wondered if it was dangerously numb, as the Double Helix lay  
  
destroyed on its side, a scream of horror broke the relative peace of the accident.  
  
Jesse shot to standing. His head whipped around toward the safe house. Their reason for  
  
being there came back to him with a vengeance. "Charlotte!" In a soft whisper, he said "don't  
  
let us be too late. Please, don't let us be too late." It wasn't perfectly a prayer, but Jesse hoped  
  
it was close enough.  
  
  
  
  
  
************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
Sitting together, drinking together, the moment crept upon them, a happy crescendo that  
  
grew in force and intensity in secret then whooshed into being. It came when Emma casually  
  
asked a simple question. "Brennan, why have you been in such an up mood? Are you high or  
  
something? You've been loopy all morning."  
  
It seemed at first that, with both Adam and Emma herself smiling at the words, he felt the  
  
questions were sufficiently humorous that they might not have been intended to elicit answers.  
  
Sometimes you ask a question just to see how people react to it. Perhaps sensing that he wasn't  
  
obligated to answer made Brennan want to answer. Maybe he felt like unburdening himself and  
  
explaining how he could have gone through such a rough battle, nearly been blown up, been  
  
exposed to the Clarks' venomous hatred, and yet be so incredibly warm and happy. For  
  
whatever reason, or none at all, he answered honestly.  
  
Setting down his drink, he said "we all could have died in that explosion. When I woke up,  
  
I started thinking about all the times we've beaten the odds. First with Eckhart and now with  
  
Gabriel Ashlocke, battle after battle, I survive. You two survive. Jesse and Shalimar survive."  
  
Brennan looked down at his glass, staring into the murky liquid. "Terrorists tried to kill us and  
  
failed, mutants have tried to kill us and failed, everyone's tried to kills us. And failed."  
  
"Good training." Adam muttered to himself.  
  
Brennan nodded. "Yeah. You're right. We're good. We've got skills, sure, but how many  
  
times can we fight the good fight and win? That's why I'm feeling so great. I'm still here. Still  
  
alive. We may be living on borrowed time, but so far, all of us can say we haven't paid the price  
  
for it." He smiled warmly. "There's no feeling in the world better than betting everything and  
  
coming out on top. You can't help but be a little loopy when every rational part of your mind  
  
keeps yelling that you should be six feet under by now."  
  
"Isn't that a little. . . a little," Emma blinked. She honestly wasn't sure what she thought  
  
about what Brennan had just said. On occasion, she'd thought almost the exact same thing.  
  
Once, she'd read that after a war, soldiers often found themselves falling into deep depressions,  
  
not because of what they'd done during the fighting, but because their lives had no excitement left  
  
in them. After the ultimate thrill of spitting in Death's eye, how could anyone get used to  
  
working behind a desk?  
  
Emma felt like scratching her head in pure indecision but stopped herself. She sighed,  
  
thinking about what she'd seen. The dark future and everything that had happened filled her  
  
mind. It had been war, certainly, but she'd seen only a fraction of its horrors. What she'd seen  
  
haunted her now, no less than any veteran and worse than some. When she woke and saw  
  
Adam's face after the battle for Capitol, after nearly dying at Catherine's hands, Emma  
  
remembered feeling such an amazing sensation that despite all the pain, she'd felt amazingly and  
  
indescribably happy.  
  
Life was an amazing gift and she'd been forced to realize it in that moment. The revelation  
  
had come at a terrible price, one she sometimes worried had not yet been paid in full, but she  
  
cherished the newfound understanding. Every day, she looked in her mirror, and thought to  
  
herself 'DeLauro, your alive. Try not be too ungrateful.'  
  
In a way, wasn't that the same thing her friend had just said?  
  
If nothing else, It made Emma's head hurt.  
  
She smiled and shook a finger at him. "Brennan, sometimes I don't know whether you're  
  
a genius philosopher or the single most obnoxious person on the planet."  
  
Grinning, he said "why can't I be both?"  
  
They all laughed about that for a while, bantering back and forth. Thinking like Brennan  
  
made all of them a little easier to smile and quicker to laugh. Why waste time being miserable or  
  
wishing you could spend the time alone when you were damned lucky just to be there? "Isn't it  
  
lucky?" Adam said to himself, giving Emma an inconspicuous look of adoration. He amplified  
  
the statement a moment later. "Isn't it lucky that we're all friends."  
  
Brennan solemnly took his glass in hand and raised it high. "I'll drink to that." He started  
  
to lower it to his lips then paused. "No. Wait. Let's all drink to that! A toast." Up again came  
  
the glass. "To the best friends a man could want, to the best family a man could want. May we  
  
all grow old together."  
  
"Excellent notion." Adam said and clinked his coffee mug against Brennan's glass and  
  
Emma's too, for she joined the impromptu toast with an eager smile. Everyone took a sip of  
  
their drinks. Then, surprising even himself, Adam raised his mug. "To Brennan. For making us  
  
have a good time despite the company."  
  
"Oh very funny." Brennan tried to make the words sound harsh but he was grinning and  
  
actually blushing a little.  
  
Emma raised her daiquiri. "No sense letting the men have all the fun. Even if I am the  
  
only woman here." She cleared her throat and tried to look serious. In a soft and sweet voice,  
  
she said "to Adam Kane, without whom we wouldn't have had those last two toasts. You made  
  
us what we are today. Friends and heros."  
  
In all of her life, she could not recall ever before seeing such an expression as the one on  
  
Adam's face. He was simultaneously touched by her words and deeply embarrassed by them.  
  
She couldn't help but snicker at his obvious discomfort. Nor could she help but wish they were  
  
close enough to kiss.  
  
Glasses clinked again regardless. "Amen." Sipping his drink, Brennan shook his head.  
  
"You've got that one dead on. We wouldn't even be alive if it weren't for you Adam." He  
  
inclined his head toward their leader, friend, and mentor. "You made us more than a team. You  
  
really are the one who made us a family. You're sort of like a father to Mutant X. Right Emma?"  
  
Brennan turned to her in expectation.  
  
Brennan asked the last just as Adam was sipping the dregs of his rather murky coffee. He  
  
spluttered and almost chocked, coughing harshly, his face turning vaguely red. For an instant, it  
  
looked like he couldn't breath. Then, with a wheeze, he did.  
  
"What's wrong? Something I said?"  
  
Adam cleared his throat, then hacked one last time. "Coffee hot."  
  
"What?" Brennan blinked, fairly certain he'd misunderstood.  
  
Perhaps in a state of shock over chocking, or the idea of being the team's "father," Adam  
  
seemed unable to come up with more words. "Coffee hot." He repeated in a dumbfounded  
  
voice that made him wince.  
  
Emma's eyes were flitting back and forth between the men. She wanted to do or say  
  
something, but her brain seemed to be on the fritz worse than Adam's. It seemed remarkably  
  
difficult to string more than two words together inside her own head, everything she wanted to  
  
say sounded moronic at best. 'Well of course I've gone stupid,' she thought caustically, 'my  
  
brain's blown a fuse. If Brennan talks about Adam being a father to us again, I think I'll go nuts.  
  
I'm sleeping with the man for goodness sake!' The thought was so loud in her mind, Emma was  
  
actually surprised no one seemed to hear it.  
  
On the other side of Brennan, Adam was having the same trouble trying to regain use of  
  
his vast vocabulary. He looked worn out. His eyes were locked on the cup in front of him.  
  
Coughing faintly before making a distinct effort to rally his thoughts, Adam tried a smile. It was  
  
lopsided but passable.  
  
"I'm sorry Brennan, you caused me to lose my train of thought." The words came out  
  
smooth as polished marble.  
  
The corner of Brennan's mouth twitched upward in a mocking grin. "Well then, let's  
  
board at the sation. I was saying that you're like a father to us. Don't you think that's a pretty  
  
apt analogy?" He favored Emma with a look, one that made her think he expected agreement.  
  
Something about the way his lower lip quivered gave the impression that he was barely  
  
restraining a stampede of laughter.  
  
Adam did not agree with Brennan. In fact, his eyes narrowed slightly as he contradicted  
  
him, as if deeply insulted by what had been said. "First, I want to say that I have never thought  
  
of myself as the father figure of Mutant X. I admit, I practically raised Shalimar, but I've always  
  
thought of myself as your teacher and your friend. I'm a mentor. A guide." He seemed to grow  
  
more confident with every word. His eyes grew warmer momentarily as he glanced at Emma.  
  
Behind Brennan's back, she blew Adam a kiss.  
  
"Besides," Adam said as he focused his attention back on Brennan, "if I were the father of  
  
Mutant X, what would that make you and Shalimar?" He waited a moment for that question to  
  
sink in. When it did, Brennan suddenly seemed distinctly uncomfortable. A predatory smile  
  
formed on Adam's face. "You'd be siblings. Now," he winked at Emma, "don't you disagree  
  
with the whole familial issue?"  
  
"Okay, okay, you've made your point." Brennan tossed up his hands in a mock surrender  
  
that was less mock than usual. Something seemed to have gone out of him. The impish grin he'd  
  
been wearing before was gone completely. "Bad analogy. Very bad analogy."  
  
"It certainly was." Emma muttered so softly no one could have heard. Adam glanced  
  
toward her anyway. Brennan hadn't noticed her speaking. For a moment, they shared  
  
something between them, as if their souls touched over the gulf of space between, space  
  
currently occupied by a Mulwray, one of the most annoying creatures ever. Both of them  
  
suddenly decided that they weren't so fond of Brennan as they'd started to think.  
  
Despite suddenly being disliked, Brennan seemed very contrite about what he'd said.  
  
"You know, I don't know what I was thinking. I've always just thought of you as 'The Boss,'  
  
you know?" He smiled and shook his head. "I really am loopy today. Forgive me. I plead  
  
temporary insanity."  
  
Frustrating even when he was being a good boy, Brennan sighed and rubbed the back of  
  
his head. His eyes got a faraway look in them. "I wonder what the others are up to."  
  
Adam, perhaps trying to take a minor revenge for being so deeply embarrassed by his  
  
teammate, grinned wickedly and said "Shalimar and Jesse probably took the Double Helix to  
  
Hawaii for a romantic sabbatical. They've always been so close."  
  
Across from him, Emma's glare was reproachfully amused.  
  
The words and glare were wasted efforts. Brennan didn't notice them. "I wonder," he  
  
mumbled to himself, an odd veneer of worry creeping onto his face. After a moment, it passed.  
  
"Just got the weirdest feeling. It was like that anticipation you feel when you wake up and just  
  
know that a storm's coming. Weird huh?" His smile was charming and ingratiating. "Weather's  
  
been great all day."  
  
Adam and Emma nodded. "Yeah, weird." They muttered in unison, which made them  
  
stare at each other for a second before smiling.  
  
Emma added "I'll bet when we get back to Sanctuary, we'll find out that Jesse grabbed  
  
one of your Walt Whitman books. Or Shalimar."  
  
"Nah. When someone does that, I feel like a train ran over my grave."  
  
They all laughed at that. Strangely, their tone wasn't one of perfect mirth, but that of a  
  
graveyard chuckle. Whistling in the dark. Even if they didn't realize it, their instincts knew what  
  
was coming. Deep down, beneath a thick quilt of civilization, the part of each that was  
  
connected to earth and sky and all of the natural world, quivered with understanding.  
  
A storm was, indeed, coming.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
******************************END OF PART TWO************************* 


	3. Rescues And Reprisals

Part Three  
  
Rescues And Reprisals  
  
  
  
  
  
"Finished." Dr. David Clark smiled as he saved his work. In less than two hours, he'd  
  
reconstructed the research database for Schrader's Folly, with far fewer holes than seemed  
  
possible. Though he hated them on principle, he couldn't fault Adam Kane's pack of bipedal lab  
  
rats for doing a poor job. They'd retrieved most of his disks and the samples of Series III, the  
  
latest and most potent form of the poison gas. The smile Clark wore turned dark and grew fangs.   
  
"I can't fault them for failure, but they exist. That's more than enough for me."  
  
A sound from behind made him turn. One of the new security men, the overall commander  
  
by the cut and markings on his uniform, stood just outside the office doorway. "Sir, we've  
  
completed our first perimeter sweep. I felt I should tell you that we need more men. Your estate  
  
is. . . larger than we anticipated."  
  
The brief hesitation in the guard's voice made Clark smirk. "You were expecting a pathetic  
  
hovel on a broken land. You found grandeur instead."  
  
Uncertain how to answer such a statement, the commander merely shrugged.  
  
"Is there anything else?"  
  
Seeming uncomfortable, the man cleared his throat and carefully considered how best to  
  
phrase his request. For reasons he couldn't quite pin down, Clark made the commander  
  
nervous. He'd been told by his superiors that a previous security force had failed in fully  
  
protecting this arrogant scientist. They'd told him that failure would result in more than the usual  
  
penalties. This man was too important to lose.  
  
The commander thought the story about another security unit a load of manure. His people  
  
were well-trained and armed with enough hardware to start World War III. To even conceive  
  
of another team with talent and tools to match his force was to imagine boogeymen that couldn't  
  
exist.  
  
Regardless of his incredulity about his predecessors, the commander had been given strict  
  
orders about how to deal with Dr. Clark and the lovely Tiffany. They were to be handled with  
  
kid gloves, every nicety observed. He had to be respectful and professional, as if guarding the  
  
President rather than a simple scientist and his daughter. That meant asking only the barest  
  
minimum of questions and not upsetting Clark.  
  
The commander hoped he was being properly respectful as he carefully laid out the problem  
  
he was faced with.  
  
"We need more men. Can't patrol these grounds with just ten. We could use a few more in  
  
the control center too." By the way he spoke, he didn't expect his employer to grant him leave to  
  
call in more men. Every additional man cost between four and six thousand a day. They were  
  
elite, armed, and very tough. The best security firm in the city; they were one of the top five in  
  
the world.  
  
Clark surprised the man by saying "whatever you need, get it. Cost is unimportant." He  
  
relished the astonished expression on the commander's face, that shocked and awed look of a  
  
soul immersed in hell given a glimpse of heaven. Bewildered but extremely pleased, acting very  
  
much like Tiffany Clark on her birthday, the man left.  
  
Thinking about his daughter brought the attack on the warehouse lab to the forefront of  
  
Dr. Clark's brain. He thought about what she'd told him, about using a syringe filled with a liquid  
  
concentrate of Schrader's Folly. Though he hated to think about it, he knew she'd used one of  
  
the previous, flawed incarnations of the poison rather than the perfected Series III.  
  
Clark wished he could simply write off her claims as a child's ignorant prattle.  
  
After all, Tiffany wasn't absolutely reliable. She could have been mistaken about using a  
  
syringe filled with crimson death. Many different substances were kept at arm's reach in his  
  
warehouse office prior to the fire so there was a slight chance she was wrong.  
  
He trusted her to be infallible, though, due to her aversion to punishment. If there was  
  
one thing in all the world that could be relied upon, it was that he would make her suffer for any  
  
foolish error. In the eyes of Dr. Clark, and to his way of thinking those of any loving father, a  
  
mistake was as good as a lie. After her last lie had been paid for with three broken ribs and a  
  
concussion, it didn't seem likely Tiffany would say anything she wasn't completely certain of.  
  
Another lie would carry that same price. With interest.  
  
A deep frown further darkened his expression. In the austere surroundings of his home  
  
office, blank walls of neutral cream and thick carpeted floors of gun metal grey, he considered  
  
the ramifications of his daughter's revelation. The first two series of Schrader's Folly he'd  
  
created were flawed. The first success, Series I, worked as a catalyst for mutation, causing an  
  
acceleration of the unnatural corruption of humanity. Powers could swell out of control during  
  
this process, which might or might not cause the mutant's death. Clark despised Series I and had  
  
kept only a few samples of it in his warehouse office, purely for testing purposes.  
  
He considered Series I a success only because it affected so-called "new mutants"  
  
exclusively. It was flawed, but it was also a stepping stone.  
  
"I hope that wasn't what Tiffany found. I'd hate to think my work helped a freak get  
  
stronger." Dr. Clark rubbed the back of his neck and stretched. He'd been working nonstop at  
  
top speed, carefully piecing together gaseous death in all its glory and grace. Every muscle in his  
  
body yearned for a break. "No rest for the righteous." He muttered, paraphrasing a quote that  
  
had come to cliché.  
  
The original version, rather than his rendering, would have been more accurate.  
  
Mind wandering to Series II, Clark found some measure of hope. His second attempt had  
  
been far more effective. Although it caused a temporary increase in mutation, this was merely a  
  
prelude to the useful elements of the gas. Lingering in the bloodstream, Series II created slow  
  
and steady decline in cellular function by damaging genetic code within human mitochondria. The  
  
resulting loss of ATP energy eventually caused death in a mutant.  
  
"Not quite perfect, but useful in its own ways. Certainly worth keeping around for fun and  
  
games if nothing else."  
  
Clark kept many samples of Series II for torture purposes and as a control method,  
  
something to use on the few mutants that would serve as tools during the purging of their filth.  
  
Once they'd served their purpose, Series III, the latest and most successful gas type, could be  
  
used to finish them or they could simply be allowed to waste away, spending their last days  
  
dwelling on their betrayal of fellow mutants while working in camps. This was likely what Tiffany  
  
had injected the freak bitch with.  
  
The potential to better the world that lay in his work made him almost weep with pride. So  
  
much death and despair waiting to happen, yearning for birth, and all Dr. Clark had to do was  
  
deliver the gas to the government.  
  
Easy as murder.  
  
"This is turning into a rather good day."  
  
As he said the words, an alarm began to scream. In an instant, he heard gunfire and people  
  
yelling. Clark rose from his chair in a rush, banging his knee on the desk. "Tiffany!" He called  
  
as he raced toward the office door. Even before he got there, she came in, slamming the door  
  
behind her. "Come here. Are you hurt?" Without waiting for her obedience or an answer, Clark  
  
pulled his daughter to him and with a army medic's thoroughness checked for injuries. Satisfied  
  
that she wasn't hurt, he turned toward his bedroom. "This way. I have a gun."  
  
Tiffany followed, but hesitantly. "I don't think they care father."  
  
Ignoring her, Clark shoved a dresser across the door frame, sealing them in. Inside the top  
  
drawer lay a .357 revolver, loaded with magnum bullets. He had no extra ammunition. He'd  
  
never expected to be attacked, not really.  
  
Outside, people were shouting. At first, the Clarks thought they were raining curses down  
  
on their enemies. Then one of the security guards started slamming his fists against the bedroom  
  
door. So close, they could easily make out his screams. "Oh God! Please, God, let me in! God,  
  
oh God, oh sweet Jesus let me in! They're not human! Let me in! I don't want to die! Please, no,  
  
no! No! Stay away!"  
  
The last cry was one of such anguish, even Dr. Clark started to cry. A stench crept in with  
  
startling alacrity, snapping at their nasal passages with merciless evil. Burning flesh, boiling blood.  
  
Fire feasting on its creator, on man. Worse, a set of calm footsteps. Steady as a heart beat in  
  
hades, quiet as Death's silken shroud passing over the earth.  
  
A voice spoke. "You have two options Dr. Clark. You can move whatever barricade  
  
you've thrown up and come out peacefully, do me a favor, and get to live. Otherwise, I'll just  
  
have to let my friend Kelly toast this place with you in it. Either way, I win."  
  
For a moment, the revolver seemed a third option. Two shots, one for Tiffany and one for  
  
himself. It had worked for Hitler and Braun. Only when he glanced at his frightened daughter's  
  
face did he realize he could not follow the example of his hero. Dr. Clark sighed. He laid the  
  
weapon down and cleared the doorway. As he slid the dresser away, the door was blown off  
  
it's hinges by a blast of energy.  
  
Striding forward with all the confidence of God, Gabriel Ashlocke entered the bedroom.  
  
In one hand was the flag that had hung above the doorway. He regarded it for a moment before  
  
tossing it to a young blonde woman with beautiful features and eerily serene eyes. She caught it  
  
in several senses of the word, for it flared the moment her flesh contacted the heartless cloth.  
  
Kelly, for Clark knew that this woman must be his fire Elemental servant, held it until the flames  
  
had devoured every stitch. The flag was gone in seconds and she was completely unharmed.  
  
"Time to go doc." Gabriel grabbed him and dragged him from the room.  
  
Kelly took hold of Tiffany, who did not struggle now, but walked with her captor as the  
  
four left the bedroom. Clark glanced back to the place where he'd laid down his revolver,  
  
wondering if it was truly too late for a swift end. His eyes fixed on an empty space even as  
  
Gabriel backhanded his head and ordered him to face forward.  
  
The .357 was gone.  
  
  
  
  
  
************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
The only thing that saved Jesse Kilmartin's life was pure coincidence. He'd leapt blindly,  
  
haphazardly even, from the wreckage of the Double Helix. As he ran for the safe house, its title  
  
laughingly playing in his mind as the most ironic of nomenclature, his foot caught in a rut in the  
  
ground. Whether it had been made by rain water or an animal, Jesse could never know, but it  
  
saved his life. He struck the earth hard and felt the wind rush from his lungs. A few seconds  
  
passed before his groans signaled a willingness to get up.  
  
When he opened his eyes, which had clenched on impact, he saw an almost invisible metal  
  
filament rising from a shallow hole in the earth. It was only two meters away. Jesse felt his heart  
  
first skip a beat then rattle like automatic rifle fire.  
  
"Proximity mines. Any closer and. . . ."  
  
Jesse wondered if he would have survived a third explosion of the day.  
  
He doubted it.  
  
"You okay?" Shalimar called out behind him, her exit from the Helix far more careful and  
  
calm. With every movement, she seemed to regain a bit of vitality and awareness of her  
  
surroundings that had been lacking in the immediate moments after the crash. She focused on  
  
him with singularly intent eyes. "What happened?"  
  
"I tripped. Good thing too, because I was about to blow myself to bits. Someone set  
  
proximity mines. They're probably all over the place, so watch your step."  
  
"Thanks for the advice." She dropped from the wreak and into a crouch, her Feral instincts  
  
preparing her for a fight.  
  
Another scream split the calm air. "Charlotte." Jesse whispered, his mind racing. He  
  
scrambled to his feet and, in a blind need to get to the safe house before it was too late, almost  
  
started running forward again. Only his training and instincts kept him from doing anything so  
  
suicidal. Cursing under his breath, Jesse surveyed the area, trying to see the nearly invisible and  
  
utterly deadly mines. He couldn't.  
  
The safe house was not far from them. No more than forty meters. The length of a short  
  
walk, a quick jaunt, not even a decent clip. So tantalizingly close and yet, so very far away. One  
  
false move and he or Shalimar would be blown apart by a mine. Jesse saw that, saw it and hated  
  
it. Charlotte was in trouble. He had to reach her.  
  
How? How to do so quickly and survive? He couldn't run while phased and if he tried to  
  
running while massed out. . . well, it would be an interesting fireworks display at the least. Mind  
  
racing, he tried to think and found himself fixating on the mines.  
  
Suddenly, Shalimar was at his side. "We have to get in there."  
  
Beside her, Jesse nodded. "Charlotte needs me." He shook his head harshly at that and  
  
corrected himself. "Charlotte needs us, I mean."  
  
If he thought his oddly possessive and protective tones had gone unnoticed by the stately  
  
blonde at his side, Jesse was bordering on delusional. Then again, perhaps he simply assumed,  
  
unknowingly, the same things Adam and Emma had been thinking when they sought to conceal  
  
their affections. That, if they didn't tell anyone anything specific, no one would put together clues  
  
and draw their own conclusions. Perhaps that was what Jesse thought. If he left the truth  
  
unspoken, it would remain unnoticed, right?  
  
"Looks like Emma's not the only one with a new love." Shalimar said offhandedly.  
  
"I haven't seen or spoken to her since she spent ten minutes apologizing to all of us after  
  
turning Adam into a lethal weapon." He replied. That had the dual benefits of being true and  
  
vague at the same time. Fortunately, Shalimar did not press it. Jesse breathed a sigh of relief.  
  
His thoughts were locked on Charlotte. Ever since he'd told Shalimar what had happened, a  
  
lump had been forming in the pit of his belly. A dread certainty had descended on him that they  
  
were too late. "We've got to save her." He whispered harshly.  
  
Shalimar's hand brushed against his. "We will. I think I can get us across this mine field."  
  
Her enhanced senses sniffed the air for the tang of explosives. "I can't smell them." She grunted,  
  
annoyed with herself. Then, she smiled. "But I can see them. If we stay far enough away, they  
  
won't explode. Hopefully."  
  
Her keen eyes noted tiny holes in the ground, about seven of them, all around the field  
  
they'd landed in. "Stick to me. Step where I step." She didn't look back to see if Jesse was  
  
listening, she assumed he was smart enough to trust her. Intensely focused, Shalimar moved  
  
carefully through paths in the mine field. She tread with care. Whomever had set up the  
  
proximity mines had fearlessly clumped them so close that only a very thin, maze-like passage  
  
remained between them.  
  
Jesse was there when they reached the safe house, which was seeming more ironically  
  
named by the second, so she assumed he'd shadowed her perfectly. Looking left and right,  
  
Shalimar saw no more surprises. Her ears picked up on extremely muffled sounds, struggling and  
  
crying. Considering what Jesse had told her, that was enough to make her eyes glow yellow and  
  
her hands reflexively curl like cat's claws. She felt like real claws should have been sliding out  
  
from the delicate skin of her fingers.  
  
For a brief instant, she wondered if one day they would. How far would her Feral mutation  
  
go before it finally reached its apex?  
  
"How do we do this?" She asked, turning to Jesse. No matter how detailed his description  
  
of the events Charlotte had informed him of, it was still thirdhand. With every passing moment,  
  
it became less useful to them or Charlotte. Shalimar knew she wasn't as good at developing  
  
strategies as he was. Plus, Jesse knew more about the safe houses. Several of the newer ones  
  
were his designs.  
  
For a moment, he considered the building, eyes checking each point of entry, mind  
  
calculating their chances of success. Though he wasn't as good at doing math in his head as  
  
Adam, Jesse wasn't stupid. He realized in an instant that any direct attack would fail. An enemy  
  
that knew where they'd land would know how they'd attack.  
  
Then an idea came to him. A mad one, pure insanity, but it was also the only thing he could  
  
come up with that wouldn't get everyone killed. Jesse turned and looked his friend and  
  
teammate in the eyes, staring for some time before speaking.  
  
If his plan worked, he'd see her again. If it failed, he wouldn't be around to care.  
  
"Well?" She asked as the silence drew too long to leave unchallenged. Precious seconds  
  
were passing with nothing being done. In this moment, Shalimar realized that she was almost as  
  
desperate as Jesse to save Charlotte, though for far different reasons. The horrors that had  
  
already happened weighed on her soul. She would save her one time enemy because to fail her  
  
would be to condemn another life to depravity and death.  
  
A great price had already been paid in blood. She wanted justice, the debt of suffering paid  
  
back by the guilty.  
  
Jesse was too deeply occupied with own personal feelings to dwell on profound moral  
  
notions. Open concern for Charlotte was only part of what he felt. Two weeks after Emma  
  
handed him the book Hope and unknowingly the letter within, it was driving him to a desperate  
  
and potentially fatal action.  
  
He took a deep breath, maybe his last.  
  
"Shalimar, wait here. I've got a plan but if it's going to work, I have to go it alone."  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
"I wonder why no one's called to check on us." Brennan muttered more to himself than his  
  
teammates. "We've been gone for awhile. Coming up on two hours, right? So, why hasn't  
  
anyone come on the comlinks and asked what we're up to?"  
  
Beside him, Adam sipped at a fresh cup of steaming coffee and said "Jesse and Shalimar  
  
are too busy planning their wedding to bother."  
  
"Excuse me for worrying Mr. Coffee Hot."  
  
"Can you two relax and act like the gentlemen you're supposed to be? This verbal judo  
  
match was funny for a few minutes but it's starting to get old. Besides, Shal would never marry  
  
Jesse." On the other side of Brennan, Emma stretched as she spoke. She'd been sitting for too  
  
long. She wanted to get up and dance with Adam. After two weeks of keeping their relationship  
  
a secret, the limits of her endurance had been reached. It was all she could do to keep her tongue  
  
from blabbing out the secret, that she, Emma DeLauro, had fallen completely in love with Adam  
  
Kane and desperately wanted to feel his arms around her as they made the dance floor sizzle.  
  
Unwilling to break the vow of secrecy she'd made with Adam, Emma vented her frustrations  
  
by saying "trust me, Shalimar and Jesse will never hook up. She's only got eyes for dark and  
  
tragic men." Her eyes fell on Brennan. "You want to hold on to her, I suggest you start faking a  
  
really nasty fatal illness."  
  
"You're worse than him." Brennan grumbled as he stood up. "Let me out. I'm getting  
  
another drink. Something strong this time. Something to make it easier to be around you two.  
  
Like arsenic."  
  
Emma swatted him as he headed for the bar, which had the duel of effect of making Brennan  
  
jump a little and throw a grin over his shoulder.  
  
With their teammate's back to them, Adam turned toward her, a gentle smile on his lips.  
  
Eyes only for her, admiring her for a moment that he wished might last an eternity, he thought  
  
'I'm so very, very lucky.'  
  
Surprising Emma with a sudden show of a affection, he reached out and let his fingers gently  
  
trace her facial lines. He paused at the underside of her chin to stroke the sensitive skin, eliciting  
  
an almost feline purr of enjoyment. She leaned forward slightly, let his fingertips tickle her lips.  
  
Softly, Adam said "while he's gone, we could sneak out. We could go someplace together. We  
  
could be alone. We could talk."  
  
"I'll bet I can guess what you'd like to 'talk' about." Emma said with a wink and bent  
  
forward to whisper seductively in his ear.  
  
Adam's face turned red as she spoke. When she was finished, he was flustered and more  
  
than a little uncomfortable. "That's no way for a lady to talk." Grinning boyishly, he added  
  
immediately "but I certainly admire your imagination."  
  
Emma eyed him with a gaze that made it hard for him to breath. "Imagination nothing! That  
  
was me predicting the future. Next real chance we get, everything I just told you will happen." A  
  
coquettish leer on her face, she licked her lips. "Repeatedly." Emma started laughing when a  
  
look of obvious anticipation formed on Adam's face, as if he'd regressed back into a teenager.  
  
Shaking her head, she said "and I don't know if anyone's let you in on this or not, but I'm about  
  
as far from being a lady as a woman can get."  
  
"Don't underestimate yourself Emma. You're as elegant and refined as any other woman  
  
I've ever known." At her raised eyebrow, he appended "when you want to be."  
  
"Not to ruin the mood, or make you think I don't appreciate the flattery, but Brennan did  
  
ask a good question earlier. Took a minute for my brain to realize it, but he has a point. You've  
  
taught us to check in with each other fairly often. Jesse or Shalimar should have called us by now,  
  
don't you think?"  
  
"I suppose so." He glanced down at his watch, eyes narrowing in consideration. "Yes,  
  
they should have called by now. Then again, they're probably resting. They came closer to dying  
  
than we did."  
  
Before she could even start to reply, Brennan returned with two glasses in hand.  
  
"I noticed you were running low. Thought I'd be a gentleman and get you a fresh one." He  
  
handed Emma a glass made frosty with cold; a delicious strawberry daiquiri for her drinking  
  
pleasure. She beamed at him, touched by the thoughtful gesture. He waved a hand. "No need  
  
to thank me, just drink and enjoy." As he spoke, he didn't return to his place between his two  
  
teammates. Instead, he more or less sat down across from them, stretching out so that he was  
  
half lying on the seat.  
  
At that moment, Emma could have kissed him.  
  
"So, what were you saying behind my back this time?"  
  
"We weren't gossiping, Brennan. Adam was just saying that he thought Shalimar and Jesse  
  
were probably resting and that's why they haven't called us." She sipped her new drink and  
  
licked her lips. "Thanks. I was getting a bit thirsty again."  
  
Brennan just nodded. "Speaking of the battle, mind if I ask a question?" When no one  
  
objected, though Adam sighed with resignation, he continued. "What exactly was Ashlocke  
  
after? I know that jerk Clark was working on a bunch of experimental medicines in his  
  
warehouse. Be kind of hard not to know that, considering it was plastered over the front  
  
entrance, 'Clark Experimental Medicine Warehouse,' how much more obvious could you get?  
  
Still, I'd like to know what kind of wonder drug he was after. Knowing might help us to figure out  
  
where his people are likely to strike next."  
  
For a moment, Adam stared at Brennan. There were times he thought the man lacked even  
  
an inkling of strategic thought. His tendency to go off haphazardly, "wing it" as he had put it once,  
  
seemed to support such an analysis. Where Brennan was concerned, Adam had learned, there  
  
were always surprises.  
  
"I can't tell either of you much about Dr. Clark's research. What I know came from one of  
  
my contacts in the government and not all of it is useful. Most of his early work involved  
  
unleashing hidden potential in the human brain. His wife used to partner with him on projects but  
  
they divorced four years ago. I mention this because, following the divorce, his work and his  
  
reports became erratic and sometimes disturbing. My contact didn't elaborate on how they were  
  
disturbing, except to say they 'reeked of hatred.' The wife's overseas now, working with a  
  
company called Trinity Inc."  
  
He stopped and sighed. "That's what I know. Not very useful, is it?"  
  
"More than I knew." Brennan said as he sipped his new drink. "Think Gabriel was after  
  
something other than medicine? Maybe Clark's gone looney tunes and created some kind of  
  
weapon."  
  
"The way he was hissing at us, that wouldn't surprise me at all." Speaking frankly, Emma  
  
continued. "The hit I got off his daughter was pretty bad. What I felt from him was something  
  
else. He hates mutants with a fanatical passion. The way he was looking at you Adam, it scared  
  
me. I got an image from his mind. He wanted to kill you as painfully as possible."  
  
She shivered and regarded him with soft eyes, her smile faint but so deliciously concerned  
  
that he wanted to kiss her right then, secrecy be damned. Adam held back by force of will.  
  
"Well, at least we don't have to deal with the Clarks again. We can't guard them if they  
  
don't want to be guarded. Normally, I'd stay on, covertly of course, but not now. Dr. Clark,  
  
whether a target of Gabriel's or not, is too likely to use his own security people against us if we  
  
try and save him." Adam took a long pull on his coffee. "And on that cheery note, I'm heading  
  
for the bathroom."  
  
"Thanks for the memo."  
  
"Brennan, you can be replaced."  
  
With a sigh, Emma shook her head. "No, Adam, I don't think we could possibly find  
  
someone else so annoying." Ignoring Brennan's snort of exasperation, she watched Adam  
  
walking away. "Hurry back. I'm afraid of what I might do in your absence." He favored her  
  
with a grave nod before leaving, cutting across the dance floor on his way. She watched him  
  
walk, the way his body moved so sensually and confidantly, still so incredibly spry at his age.  
  
Emma felt a longing deep inside.  
  
'Why can't I go more than a minute without wanting him?' She thought as her eyes followed  
  
his movements all the way to the restroom door. 'Every day, I wake up thinking the dream will  
  
be over. Today he'll realize that being with me is a mistake. Today he'll break my heart.' Emma  
  
touched her chest, her fingers just over that very place. 'Every day, I still have him, still want him,  
  
and still love him. How did I get so lucky?'  
  
Brennan's voice broke into her thoughts with the force of a headsman's ax. "What do you  
  
mean? Lucky how?"  
  
Spinning around so fast she almost knocked her drink over, Emma faced Brennan. She  
  
hadn't realized she'd said her last thought out loud. What else had come from her mouth? "I'm  
  
sorry, I was thinking."  
  
"Yeah. Staring at Adam too. Should I start calling you 'teacher's pet' or what?"  
  
In that instant, having already decided the secret had been secret long enough, having spent  
  
every second wishing she and Adam could dance and kiss and just be affectionate without  
  
worrying about what Brennan might think, Emma felt her resolve snap. In a momentary lapse in  
  
judgement, an error that might have been avoided if Adam hadn't left the table, leaving her alone  
  
with Brennan, she opened her mouth to tell everything.  
  
Before she could utter a word, he said "no, don't say it. You're lucky the old man finally  
  
left you alone with me, right? You're helplessly, hopelessly, and very breathlessly in love and  
  
you've just got to tell it to the world." Without having a clue that he was striking the proverbial  
  
nail's head into oblivion, at least when it came to her being in love, Brennan chuckled. Before this  
  
moment, a thin thread of sanity had prevented Emma from speaking.  
  
She needed Adam's comforting presence, his gentle eyes to gaze into and the softness of  
  
his lips to desire, to maintain that thread. Alone with her teammate, she could no longer hold  
  
back. She could feel her heart pounding as it screamed and pleaded for her to reveal the secret.  
  
The team would either accept them or not. She couldn't know how they'd react. Only in a  
  
baring of souls could Emma hope to discover her teammates' approval.  
  
More than with any of the others, she'd been fighting the instinct to lay it all out to Brennan.  
  
He was her closest confidant before she'd grown so close to Shalimar, the first ally she'd known  
  
when the GSA came to collect her. Now, Emma's heart begged for action, pleaded for her to do  
  
what her head and common sense railed against.  
  
Brennan, unaware of the tension he was causing, the temptation he was forcing upon her,  
  
leaned closer to Emma. "We really need to find you a date. You're starting to stare at our leader  
  
like he's a big juicy steak and you're a hungry leopard." A snort that resembled a chuckle burst  
  
from his lips. "That would be funnier if you were Shalimar or at least more ironic."  
  
Emma closed her eyes and took a deep breath.  
  
No more secrets.  
  
"I already have someone in my life. Someone amazing. He's handsome, gentle, and the  
  
sweetest and most loving man I've ever been with. I'm already in love with someone who's  
  
perfect." She spoke so calmly and with such conviction, she couldn't believe the words were  
  
coming from her own lips. Inside, her heart was thundering and her stomach was slithering  
  
around as if it were filled with live serpents. Cold sweat covered every millimeter of flesh.  
  
The truth was about to set her free, but at what price? Would her friend turn away from  
  
her and Adam, condemn their love? Emma didn't know. She wasn't sure she wanted to find  
  
out, but it was too late to turn back. Maybe she could have blanked Brennan's mind, forced  
  
away all traces of the words she had just spoken. For whatever reason, in this moment, she was  
  
willing to trust in him.  
  
Blinking in surprise, Brennan happily clapped his hands. "Really? You're with someone?  
  
Hey, congrats! Why didn't you tell me before?" He shook a finger at her, as she were a naughty  
  
child. "Shalimar thought there something going on with you, but I figured you would have said  
  
something about a new love in your life by now. Considering the team's track record with  
  
significant others, we might have to have a funeral for Mr. Perfect. Or maybe a hanging." He  
  
laughed but it was, in light of the facts, very much a case of kidding on the square. The joke hit  
  
close to home.  
  
That didn't stop Emma from saying "it's Adam."  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
Emma stared at Brennan, her gaze steady and piercing. "I'm with Adam."  
  
"What?"  
  
Emma took a deep breath and enunciated every word, carefully saying them slowly and  
  
precisely, as if she were speaking to a very dim-witted child. "I. Am. With. Adam. Kane."  
  
"You're kidding, right?"  
  
"No I am not!" The words burst out of her in a roar that attracted a lot of attention. After  
  
turning a shade of red two steps away from the color of most American fire engines, she  
  
continued in more subdued tones. "Adam and I are together. We're a couple; we're lovers. Do  
  
you understand or do I have to draw you pictures?"  
  
For a moment, she thought she might. Brennan looked as if someone had just struck him  
  
in the head with a steel beam. Emma had expected stunned shock. She had even, perhaps,  
  
expected complete and total disbelief. It was what would come after, the story's end, that made  
  
her heart race while her blood turned to ice water. How would Brennan react now that he  
  
knew? He didn't seem to want to believe her. Was that because he thought she was kidding or  
  
because the idea of she and Adam together horrified him? Emma didn't know and that, more  
  
than anything else, frightened her. She couldn't judge his emotions because he was experiencing  
  
just about every one in the spectrum of human sentiment.  
  
After sitting silently in thought for a while, Brennan reached out and took his drink. He  
  
gulped down every drop. If it was alcoholic, he didn't show any sign of suddenly getting drunk.  
  
With the air of a man about to make a very important statement, he fixed his eyes on Emma, and  
  
said very simply, "I knew it."  
  
At that moment, Adam returned to the table. Brennan stared at him with thoughtful eyes,  
  
perhaps seeing him for the first time, considering this man who had changed all their lives so  
  
drastically. Emma stared at him too, her gaze flinty and a bit stern, as if he'd done something  
  
wrong. She was angry, but more at herself for revealing their secret only to find out secrecy  
  
wasn't even necessary. Adam looked from one to the other, taking in their expressions and  
  
deciding he didn't have a clue what was going on now.  
  
All he could do was mutter, "why do I have the feeling something just hit the fan?"  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
Devon Bowden sat behind the wheel of his car, sweltering in early afternoon heat. On the  
  
seat beside him, propped up as if trying to imitate a person, rested the silenced pistol he would  
  
use to murder Emma DeLauro. His instructions had been very specific. She was to die first, if  
  
possible, and then Brennan Mulwray. Adam Kane was to be wounded rather than murdered.  
  
Somehow, that seemed worse to Devon. How could a man so noble bare a survivor's guilt when  
  
two of his best friends lay dead before him.  
  
The pistol seemed to be mocking him for feeling sympathy for the man. Sunlight gleamed  
  
on its casing, making it seem a jewel. A killing tool that was so much more than it appeared. To  
  
his employer, this pistol was the answer to terrible questions. It was a solution. The weapon  
  
would change the world and barely whisper as it did.  
  
In a way, that was horrifying. The silent kill. The silence that would follow as hearts grew  
  
still and souls drifted soundlessly to a heaven that could not be heard by the living to weep. The  
  
quiet of a revenge so cold-blooded it made innocents into its swords.  
  
"How did I let this happen? Katherine, how could I have been so blind?" Devon whispered  
  
in the lonely, stagnant car interior. No one answered him. It didn't matter. He knew, in his heart,  
  
what had made him foolishly trust another man with the most precious gift ever to come into his  
  
life. "I thought he was a good person. I'm sorry, I just didn't realize."  
  
The electronic display on the radio said that nearly an hour had passed since he'd left the  
  
club, walked away from the last place Emma and Brennan were ever to see. Devon kept  
  
picturing them sitting there with Adam to one side. His mind played memories in an ever more  
  
jumbled montage. Scenes of stalking the Mutant X members, a clip from his wedding to  
  
Katherine, taking the pistol in hand, kissing his wife awake, Adam and Emma sharing a loving  
  
gaze, his own lover's eyes, Brennan laughing, Katherine laughing, the bastard who'd taken her  
  
laughing.  
  
Devon covered his face with his hands and ground his teeth hard, tasting the coppery  
  
sweet tang of blood after a moment. He wanted desperately to wake up in bed, his beautiful wife  
  
beside him, and learn that it was all a bad dream.  
  
It couldn't be done. This nightmare had flesh and form; it was reality.  
  
He was going to commit murder shortly. As soon as Mutant X came out of the club. First,  
  
a single round would race through the air, barely making a sound. Like a child hushed under  
  
covers while monsters roamed under bed and out of closets, the pistol would be silent but not  
  
perfectly so. Emma would die. Devon was an excellent shot. Heart failing as a fragmenting  
  
bullet tore it apart, her last thought would surely be about Adam. If she truly loved him, his name  
  
would be a final utterance from her lips and his face a glimpse of paradise to come.  
  
Next, as Adam desperately tried to shield her from another shot, Brennan would die before  
  
he could use his electrical powers. It would take at least two seconds for him to form a coil of  
  
lightening worthy of Tesla, longer if he was stunned by his friend's sudden death. Another shot.  
  
Greater silence. The inaudible weeping of angels.  
  
Finally, Adam would be wounded. Devon had been told to shoot him in the spine, as he  
  
used his body to protect his fallen lover. Any mistake and he would die. If that happened,  
  
Katherine would also perish. Whether the tears of divinity fell for this man or not, Devon knew  
  
that if his wife was lost, it would mean he'd murdered two people and tried to permanently  
  
paralyzed another for nothing.  
  
"And not just them," he murmured as a trickle of sweat ran the length of his cheek, "but  
  
everyone that loves them will be harmed. Anyone close to the rest of them will suffer as well.  
  
Adam's friends and family, their friends and family. Emma's and Brennan's and so many more. I  
  
won't just be murdering two people. I'll be slaying a city's worth of hopes and dreams and God  
  
knows how much pain I'm to be the cause of." Devon felt a tightness in his chest. Back in the  
  
club, he'd almost made himself believe it wasn't really happening.  
  
No illusions existed now. Reality made no apologies. All the children of Eden had freewill  
  
and many used it for pointless animal hatreds and lusts. Greed ravaged, vanity corrupted, while  
  
depravity was common enough to go unnoticed by most everyone in Hollywood. When the  
  
majority falls into decay, the moral minority falls with them.  
  
Devon closed his eyes. He wanted a way out. He wanted to save Katherine without  
  
committing murder. He wasn't a killer. Until two days ago, he'd believed in peace and that there  
  
was kindness and decency in everyone.  
  
He knew better now.  
  
Some people were monsters hiding in the sheep's clothing of innocence. Beasts of the  
  
abyss that could smile and pretend to love. Once, a man said that it was better for ten guilty men  
  
to go free than for one to be falsely imprisoned. Devon doubted that man had ever considered  
  
just how much damage those ten guilty would do while free. How many rapes or murders or  
  
child molestations in a year? A month? A day even?  
  
A shiver ran down Devon's spine despite the heat of the car. "I'm no better than any of  
  
those people. I'm going to murder heros. All because some psychopath wants revenge. Can't go  
  
to the police, can't even tell anyone what he looks like." He slammed a fist down on the  
  
dashboard. "Can I really do this? Oh Katherine, I know you said not to, but I can't let you die.  
  
I love you too much."  
  
Beside him, the silencer equipped pistol beckoned like the ferryman. The time had come.  
  
No thought nor prayer could prevent what he was about to do. Devon reached over, gripped his  
  
partner in murder tightly, and left the car's frying pan warmth. Soon, he'd jump into the blazes of  
  
hell itself. One shot. A second. Tears of a man who'd just lost more than anyone could be  
  
expected to bear. The third and final shot to take even more from Adam Kane.  
  
Devon tucked the weapon into his shirt. He reached into his back pocket and removed a  
  
picture he always kept with him of Katherine. "I'm sorry baby. I can't let the bastard hurt you.  
  
Better me than you. I just hope. . . that you can find it in your heart. . . to. . . to look at me when  
  
its done." The words chocked him with emotion.  
  
In his hand, the pistol was heavy. The weight of a fallen angel's heart, plummeting toward  
  
abyss and oblivion. Devon returned his wife's image to his pocket. He no longer deserved to  
  
look upon her beauty. He stepped forward.  
  
The storm drew closer.  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
Watching Charlotte Cooke shake and whimper in pain was more enjoyable than Duncan  
  
Ladd thought it should be. Savoring her suffering, he snickered. Far from being a savagely brutal  
  
monster like Simon, he considered himself a connoisseur of torment, a master even. Years ago,  
  
he'd served as a member of a covert intelligence gathering team, systematically developing ways  
  
to extract information that were untraceable. He'd never left a mark, not a bruise or even a paper  
  
cut. Constant repetition of certain musical pieces, ridiculous clothing, insults against a beloved  
  
religion, they all eventually made men break. Duncan looked back on those days with mixed  
  
amusement and regret that they'd been wasted on "non-violent" torture methods.  
  
Since those days, he'd learned things the Nazi SS would have blanched at. His employer  
  
had taught him a few special horrors.  
  
Still, he found himself compelled by instinct to return the subdermal governor remote to his  
  
coat pocket and retrieve Simon's pistol from his cooling corpse. His instincts were warning  
  
him of something now, just as they'd whispered to him of the threat a live Simon would present  
  
when the mission was over. Simon would have told their employer about Duncan's own  
  
indulgences, his delight at every kill.  
  
He could not allow anyone to know about his lust for death. If his employer knew the truth  
  
behind it, he would not enjoy his last moments of life at all. To a degree, he regretted that he  
  
couldn't trust Simon to be quiet. Though he knew it really didn't matter that he'd put a hole in  
  
the man's head, it affected him. In his own way, Duncan had been fond of Simon. . . after a  
  
fashion.  
  
Instinct told him to get ready for an attack. He'd been told to expect Kilmartin to come at  
  
his rear. He took a deep breath, felt it sooth his racing heart. This was what he lived for: the kill,  
  
the thrill of fatality. Used to facing the likes of the GSA and untrained members of the Strand,  
  
Duncan assumed Mutant X would strike boldly and predictably.  
  
Behind him and at his feet, Charlotte was breathing very fast and shallow. Part of him  
  
wanted to check to make sure she wasn't having a heart attack. 'Some trace of a conscience?'  
  
he wondered ideally. 'Unlikely.' He used the sound of her gasps to measure time. Slowly, they  
  
became deep and rhythmic. Duncan checked his watch while keeping one eye on the wall and  
  
one weapon trained there as well. Charlotte no longer sounded as if she intended to die while  
  
more than fifteen minutes had passed while he stood listening.  
  
"Why hasn't Kilmartin attacked?" Duncan muttered as he neared the window once more.  
  
His eyes fell upon the smoldering wreak of the Double Helix. From a distance, he saw nothing to  
  
indicate that there had been survivors. "Perhaps I overestimated them."  
  
He turned around. Charlotte shivered as he knelt close, pulling away from him and  
  
whimpering.  
  
"Oh don't be like that my dear. I have good news for you. It would appear that you were  
  
right after all. I do believe that Mr. Kilmartin and Ms. Fox are, how to put this delicately. . ." A  
  
dark grin formed on his lips. "I'll take a note from my departed colleague's style and be  
  
completely indelicate." He leaned very close, so close in fact that he was breathing in Charlotte's  
  
breath, drawing the scent of her hair into his nostrils. "They are dead. Completely, utterly, dead.  
  
And its all your fault. Everything is your fault."  
  
Charlotte tried to bury her face in the floor, but Duncan grabbed her chin and turned her  
  
face to his once more. "They died because of you. You were our target. All those people we  
  
killed, all for little, pathetic, you."  
  
Tears streaming down her face, Charlotte let out a moan of anguish. Duncan started  
  
laughing and rose. He took a step away from her, intending to admire his handiwork. Taking  
  
that as a cue, she shoved herself upward on her hands, spun her body, and kicked him in the  
  
crotch. Before Duncan was halfway to the floor, Charlotte slammed a foot into his head,  
  
knocking him onto his back. In a blink, she was on her lethal toes, running for freedom and  
  
salvation. All she had to do was make it out of the den and to the front door. Outside, she could  
  
reach the garage and her car. Then she'd be safe.  
  
A surge of electric pain filled her body. She let out a scream and collapsed, twisting and  
  
jerking in agony. It felt as if someone had just poured molten lead into her veins. The sounds that  
  
burst from her lips were equal parts curse and wordless animal noise.  
  
Duncan towered over her a moment later, the back of one hand pressing against a deep  
  
gash in his forehead while still holding a pistol. "You just don't know when to give up, do you?"  
  
He wheezed angrily. "I swear, if it didn't mean my life, I'd kill you and make a month out of it!  
  
Can you imagine what it would be like to slowly die from torture?" Seized by rage, Duncan  
  
struck Charlotte across the face with the pistol, the blow making her head swirl sideways.  
  
"I could kill you right now. The only reason I don't is because my employer will almost  
  
certainly have a worse fate in mind for you."  
  
He slipped the subdermal governor remote into his pocket and grabbed a fistful of her  
  
dark and silken hair. Duncan yanked Charlotte to her feet, eliciting a gasp that made him smile  
  
again. "It's time to go, bitch." He shoved her backwards so that she fell into a chair. He took  
  
the remote back out of his pocket and held it up menacingly. Then, he gestured with the pistol.  
  
"Get up."  
  
Suddenly, Duncan felt a presence behind him. He spun around and there was Jesse  
  
Kilmartin, caught in mid attack. The pistol barked harshly. A look of horrified surprise came into  
  
the blond man's eyes. As he stumbled back, Duncan fired again. And again.  
  
Jesse crumpled bonelessly after the fourth shot roared.  
  
Duncan stared in astonishment. He nudged the body with his toe. It didn't seem to  
  
respond. Cautiously, he leaned down and prodded again, this time employing the barrel of his  
  
pistol against the fallen man's head. There was still no response.  
  
"I killed him." Duncan whispered. It was difficult to believe. After everything he'd learned  
  
about them, how could he put down a member of Mutant X so easily. "Not so tough, after all,  
  
are you?" He rose to his feet again, glanced back and saw that Charlotte was too stunned to  
  
make another escape attempt, and repeated his earlier gesture with the pistol, once more as calm  
  
and businesslike as if he were in a store picking out a suit to wear.  
  
"Get up Ms. Cooke, you've got an appointment to keep."  
  
Slowly, Charlotte obeyed. She acted as if she'd just woken from a deep sleep. Part of  
  
that was from the pain she'd endured in such a short time. The other came from the shock of  
  
Jesse's death. Seeing him fall had taken the fight from her at last.  
  
With Duncan behind, Charlotte walked where he ordered her. As they made their way  
  
slowly through the safe house, she heard her captor's words hissing in a deep and black corner  
  
of her mind. It was her fault. All of their deaths, the blood of friends and would-be saviors,  
  
weighed upon her soul. If she'd been there when they first came, maybe she could have  
  
prevented the massacre. Charlotte wished for a miracle.  
  
Suddenly, from behind, she heard someone shout, "Shalimar now!" She spun around and  
  
saw Jesse wrap his arms around Duncan, pinning his pistol hand before he could fire, making his  
  
body super solid to make it impossible for the bastard to break his hold. In seconds, Shalimar  
  
Fox was there as well, rushing through a nearby door, moving with a feline grace. She drove her  
  
fist into Duncan's stomach, drew back and hit his face. After about seven such punches, he  
  
collapsed at last.  
  
Letting out a relieved sigh, and becoming his usual soft and hugable self again, Jesse rubbed  
  
at his stomach, where Duncan had shot him. Charlotte saw no blood or holes. "I can't believe  
  
that worked." He said quietly, turning to Shalimar. "I thought I was dead for sure."  
  
"What the hell did you do? I heard shots." She replied, her eyes narrowing.  
  
"I let the bastard shoot me. I've been practicing phasing just a portion of my body instead  
  
of the whole thing. Figured it might come in handy. Wasn't sure I had a handle on it yet but I  
  
guess I do." He looked down at Duncan's unconscious body. An expression of pure and  
  
unbridled hatred and disgust formed on his face. He'd already seen this man's partner, so  
  
obviously executed. He'd been told earlier by Charlotte what had happened to the people in the  
  
safe house. Too many details haunted his mind. And now, as she stood so close to him, he saw  
  
the bruise that was just starting to form on her face.  
  
Her eyes were on him.  
  
Without wasting another second, he reached down and bodily lifted Duncan. He turned  
  
and marched toward the nearest window. Jesse took a deep breath and hurled the man through  
  
it, shattering glass. He watched as Duncan hit the ground and sprung back to life, jumping to his  
  
feet, turning toward the window. They shared a glare for an instant. Then Duncan was running  
  
and, chest heaving, Jesse watched as the killer scrambled to escape.  
  
Shalimar stared at Jesse, stunned by what she was seeing. "What in the name of everything  
  
sane are you doing?"  
  
Tears of relief springing to her face, thankful to be alive, Charlotte answered Shalimar's  
  
question. "I don't know. But I like it."  
  
Remarkably calm and controlled Jesse reached down and picked up one of Duncan's  
  
pistols, the one he'd struck Charlotte in the face with. Slowly, focusing his mind, he raised the  
  
weapon and peered down its barrel. He wasn't aiming for Duncan. The target was stationary.  
  
His smile grew colder.  
  
Jesse had his sights set on a proximity mine.  
  
"Let's see how you like it." He whispered and pulled the trigger. An explosion followed,  
  
a wave of force tossing Duncan sideways like a rag doll. Turning back to Shalimar and Charlotte,  
  
his face softened at the sight of one's worried gaze and the other's tears. "Are you alright?" He  
  
asked, taking Charlotte's hand in his and holding it tightly to his chest.  
  
"Yeah. I am now." She was too happy about being saved to wonder why Jesse was  
  
showing such concern for her or why he'd just acted with such vengeful anger. Somewhere in  
  
the back of her mind, she thought back to how he'd quoted the words "go to a place where  
  
sorrow knows no hold and angels tread in silence." How could he know them, the whispers in  
  
the dark, how could he?  
  
Shalimar left the two of them. She went to the window and glanced out. "He's gone."  
  
Fatigue made her almost collapse right there. "That guy you tried to blow up, looks like he's got  
  
nine lives."  
  
Jesse glanced back, stared at her for a second in surprise, then smiled. "Good thing I've  
  
got a cat woman with me to even the odds." He returned his attention to Charlotte, one hand  
  
going to her wounded face, gently touching the purpling skin around her right eye. "And you,  
  
wildcat, you look like you must have put up a great struggle."  
  
Her eyes met his. Something changed in them. They seemed to become slightly lighter, as  
  
if draining of the darker emotions and feelings. Her lips curled into a smile. "My father used to  
  
call me that. Wildcat."  
  
How many of her secrets did he know?  
  
More importantly, why wasn't she upset that he knew them?  
  
Charlotte's body chose that moment to collapse from the strain it had been under.  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
The mansion was a smoldering wreck, every stone melted and every board made ash.  
  
Once verdant, cash green grass now lay in death the color of a vampire's lips, pale and dark at  
  
the same time. Hundreds of trees still blazed all around, sending long pillars of smoke toward  
  
heaven. Nearby, a mobile building that had housed Clark's security people was cooling down at  
  
last, covered in soot and scorch marks. The forgotten dead within no more important to Kelly or  
  
Gabriel than the mansions ruins.  
  
Kneeling in a circle of flame, Tiffany Clark watched as her father was beaten. Each blow  
  
that struck made her wince. Despite all of his failings, she loved him. However, after this day,  
  
she had no respect left for him.  
  
She despised the weakness he'd displayed before in the bedroom. Everything he'd done  
  
since hiring Adam Kane had been idiocy on parade. Mistake after mistake, each one bringing  
  
them closer to capture at the hand's of an insane freak and his psycho whore girlfriend. Tiffany  
  
felt like screaming, but she held back. She'd been told to be silent or else. Though disgust and  
  
love warred in her heart, she wasn't yet sure which was stronger.  
  
Gabriel had no trouble deciding how he felt about the man.  
  
"Doc, you're starting to try my patience. I thought we had a deal."  
  
Although it would have been immense fun to snap Clark's neck, break his spine over one  
  
knee, or otherwise kill the Nazi bastard, Gabriel restrained himself. He was proud of himself for  
  
that. Restraint wasn't a word typically in his vocabulary.  
  
"Tell me what I want to know and I'll go away. Simple. I've destroyed your research,"  
  
Gabriel failed to mention that before allowing Kelly to torch the mansion he'd had her copy it all  
  
to disk. "Now, you can earn survival by saving my life. I'm going to take you to a hospital and  
  
you're going to put together a little booster shot for me. You see, I've got this problem. My  
  
powers are so incredible, this puny mortal coil I wear isn't strong enough to endure them." He  
  
smiled, an expression so charismatic, so disarming, that even a beaten and broken Clark  
  
responded to it. "If you help me, I promise to set you and your lovely daughter free."  
  
Lying on the ground, barely able to sit up, Clark turned to look at his daughter. She was  
  
not far from him, Kelly Rice standing guard over her. When he let himself look at the blonde, he  
  
muttered "Series I," and then almost passed out. Recovering just as he started to fall backwards,  
  
Clark faced Gabriel again. "Alright," he said slowly, grimacing in self loathing and race righteous  
  
rage. "I'll help you."  
  
Tiffany was on her feet in an instant. "You idiot! Do you really expect him to let us go?  
  
He'll kill you the moment you're done!"  
  
Chuckling, Gabriel came close and leaned toward her, reaching out to touch her long  
  
black hair, like flowing strands of midnight anguish. He pressed a finger against his lips and made  
  
a shushing noise. "Quiet dear girl. Can't you tell the adults are talking grownup words? You  
  
don't worry. Everything's going to be fine."  
  
When he wanted, Gabriel could sound more charming than a prince. Through a veil of  
  
hatred, she responded to the soft warmth, the chocolate wonder of his words as they gently  
  
caressed her mind. Slowly, Tiffany grew calm. She even found herself attracted to Gabriel,  
  
wanting to run young and inexperienced fingers through his hair.  
  
"Better." He turned to Kelly. "Why don't you take her for a walk or something while I  
  
haul Dr. Mengele. Be back from the local hospital soon."  
  
With a nod and a knowing smile, for she understood exactly what Gabriel meant by "take  
  
her for a walk," Kelly waved her hand to extinguish the fire circle. She let the girl stand on her  
  
own. No point in helping. Not when she would be dead soon. "Come on kid. Let's wander the  
  
grounds. What's left of them."  
  
Behind her, Gabriel grabbed Clark and started marching him toward the Strand's jet.  
  
They'd acquired it only a short time ago as an antidote to Mutant X's Double Helix. As she  
  
walked, she listened as the engines warmed. She listened as the jet rose steadily into the air.  
  
Finally, her ears followed its movement briefly, as it roared away toward town and a hospital,  
  
where Gabriel could force his salvation from Clark.  
  
Kelly paid the jet too much attention. From the moment she'd risen from the ground,  
  
Tiffany had been carefully and covertly reaching into her dress. The .357 had been difficult to  
  
keep secure, let alone hidden, but the girl had managed. She was her father's daughter, but it  
  
was her mother who'd taught her how to fight and how to secrete weapons in ordinary clothing.  
  
Though she hadn't been much for hugs or kisses, Lydia Jensen Clark had been a staunch  
  
advocate for women's self-defense training.  
  
The revolver was heavier than Tiffany was used to. When she spun around and fired it,  
  
her hands went numb from the recoil. It fell from her hands but that wasn't important. Breathing  
  
hard, rubbing her fingers against her side, she was both satisfied and sickened at the sight of Kelly  
  
lying on the ground, a pool of blood slowly forming around her head. Tiffany turned away and  
  
started running.  
  
Had she been calmer, she would have realized that a blow to the head from a magnum  
  
bullet should have left her enemy's skull a pulverized mess. Instead of killing her, Tiffany had  
  
only grazed Kelly's right temple. Like any scalp wound, this one bled profusely but not  
  
dangerously. There had been sufficient force for a knockout, but for how long?  
  
Unaware that she would soon be in danger again, Tiffany headed for a building that lay at  
  
the very edge of her father's estate. Miraculously, it had been left untouched, likely mistaken for  
  
servant's quarters. Beneath a false log cabin facade lay six inches of hardened steel, an airtight  
  
chamber with more than a year's worth of basic supplies, and the best communications  
  
equipment money could buy. The fact that she and her father had not been waiting there when  
  
the attack came was another foolish error on the elder Clark's head.  
  
"One more reason to not follow in his footsteps." She muttered as she pulled open the  
  
door and rapidly entered a pass code on a hidden keypad next to the interior door. Soon, she  
  
was inside, feeling confident though slightly nauseated at having shot someone.  
  
She went straight to the computer and activated a wall-sized screen. It hummed blankly  
  
for a moment as a satellite moved in orbit, aiming downward to point at a place far more secret  
  
than the cabin. Tiffany waited, knowing it would take a long time for the computer she was  
  
contacting to decide the line was safe. The man she was contacting took no chances.  
  
Suddenly, he appeared on the screen.  
  
Stiffening to attention, as her father had taught her, she bowed her head slightly to him,  
  
hoping he wouldn't cut the transmission immediately. "Mr. Sheckt, I'm calling from my father's  
  
panic room. There has been an incident at the estate. Ashlocke has my father and is heading to  
  
the nearest hospital." She paused. On screen, Sheckt was smiling. "Sir, I need help. There may  
  
be additional Strand operatives in the area."  
  
The man started laughing.  
  
Tiffany got a sinking feeling. "Mr. Sheckt, my father is loyal. You have to help him. You  
  
have to save me!"  
  
The screen went blank.  
  
Sheckt's laughter rang in her ears like dark thunder rolling on the fire plains of hell. She  
  
tried to reconnect with Sheckt's central computer, but Tiffany was blocked immediately. Her  
  
only other hope was the dedicated main line.  
  
When she tried it, there was only a static hiss. Her father had never connected it.  
  
Fifteen minutes later, Kelly woke up and figured out where Tiffany had gone.  
  
A half hour passed before she'd reduced the panic room to molten slag.  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
Well fortified with a shot of something so potently alcoholic Brennan was amazed his breath  
  
didn't ignite, he sat in perfect calm. His eyes traversed between Adam and Emm, resting on each  
  
for a brief respite, before settling on Adam. A congratulatory grin formed on his face. With great  
  
solemnity, Brennan said "I knew it," tapping the table at each word for emphasis. "The two of  
  
you couldn't have been more obvious."  
  
Emma bristled at that. "Excuse me, we were very discreet."  
  
"Right. You both started going into town whenever the rest of us got busy." He held up  
  
his right hand and started counting off with his fingers. "At every meal, you sit beside each other,  
  
barely communicating with the rest of us. The two of you have been going around Sanctuary the  
  
last two weeks bursting into spontaneous grins at the sight of each other. Frankly, I'm amazed  
  
I'm the only one who figured it out, even if I didn't believe it. Heck, I can't believe I managed to  
  
delude myself into thinking I was imagining the whole thing."  
  
Brennan started to take a sip of his drink but thought better of it. The amber fluid was a  
  
bit too strong for his tastes. "You also speak in stereo lately." He added in lieu of drinking.  
  
"We do not!" Adam said at exactly the same time Emma came out with, "we do not!"  
  
They looked at each other for a moment then turned matching shades of red while their  
  
teammate chuckled victoriously. "Okay, we do." Again, they spoke in unplanned, unintended,  
  
but perfect unison, which made Brennan laugh even harder.  
  
After a few seconds, he got quiet. "So. . . how exactly did this happen? I'm guessing it has  
  
something to do with your visit to the 'age of Eckhart' but there's a lot more to this, isn't there?"  
  
His expression was subdued. When he spoke, his voice was respectful and deeply curious.  
  
"How did you two hook up? Give me some details."  
  
Adam turned toward Emma. She nodded ever so slightly, granting him the privilege of  
  
telling the whole story. Rapidly, Brennan got to hear a few of the things they'd left out before.  
  
Word by word, a picture formed. At the end, Adam said simply, "being trapped in the dark  
  
future forced us to come to terms with our mutual affections. We finally confronted our hearts."  
  
He reached out and Emma took his hand in her own, a bond of love. "I'm glad you know and  
  
that you're not bothered by the truth."  
  
Nodding thoughtfully, Brennan said "you two deserve to be happy. If you're happiest with  
  
each other, who am I to say anything?"  
  
"I don't believe it, he's being sensible."  
  
Adam laughed and stood up. "Emma, I think we should leave before he sobers up."  
  
"Oh, now who's trying to be funny. And the operative word is trying. Leave the jokes to  
  
the master, okay? Or my apprentice Jesse." Brennan was on his feet in a flash, moving easily.  
  
He hadn't had enough alcohol to either impair his judgement or unsettle his feet. In fact, as a new  
  
song started playing over the club's speaker system, he went into a one-man dance routine that  
  
won him a standing ovation from Emma, who was now, once more and for always, at Adam's  
  
side.  
  
The trio headed for the front door, laughing and talking as true friends. Feeling giddy with  
  
freedom, their secret finally revealed, Emma planted a kiss on Adam that almost made him pass  
  
out. A young couple who saw them whistled, which made both blush while Brennan started to  
  
open the door for them.  
  
"I can't wait to see everyone's expressions back at Sanctuary when you two do that.  
  
Jesse's going to freak and Shalimar's going to have kittens." He suddenly stopped, the door half  
  
open. "I'd better not let her know I said that."  
  
"No, what you'd better do is move it or lose it!" Emma said as she scooted past him and  
  
threw open the door, taking a deep breath of fresh afternoon air and blinking as bright sunlight  
  
poured down on her. She was the first to step outside. Her foot came down on an abandoned  
  
scrap of paper, making a crackling noise. A gentle breeze rose and carried the scent of fresh  
  
flowers from an open air market down the road. Emma's smile was wide and warm.  
  
On her second step, it froze. She felt the man's emotions before she saw him, black skin a  
  
deeper shade than unaltered coffee with a face like an angel's own. A heart beat passed, maybe  
  
two, before he raised a formidable pistol. The silencer's barrel seemed as long and deep as the  
  
express subway tunnel to hell. Behind her, Emma heard the others freeze in place, felt Adam's  
  
hand on her shoulder, already starting to force her out of harm's way. The man, his green eyes  
  
terribly sad yet filled with determined conviction, began to draw the trigger toward him. Another  
  
beat of Emma's heart passed as he aimed at her. She could feel his mind and his emotions spoke  
  
clearly to her.  
  
In the language of feeling, the man said "forgive me. I have no other choice."  
  
A hiss cleaved the air. There was a ping of metal as a large steel casing fell to the ground,  
  
the only tear of a machine's heart. The rest was pure silence. No words, just quiet stillness. A  
  
faint breeze. An edge of harsh redolence, seared powder, added tang. One moment in time, one  
  
shot through the heart of peace.  
  
The storm had come.  
  
Mutant X would never be the same.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
*****************************END OF PART THREE************************* 


	4. Broken Moments

Part Four  
  
Broken Moments  
  
  
  
  
  
It was simplicity itself to enter Jacob's Memorial hospital without arousing anyone's  
  
suspicions. Gabriel gave his warmest smile to a lady nurse, nearly causing her to swoon, and that  
  
got him past the reception desk. Bypassing security was, if anything, easier. Dr. Clark had his  
  
credentials on hand. Looking bored and very old, the silver haired security guard let them enter  
  
the labyrinthian halls with barely a hint of concern. Moments later, Clark and his captor were  
  
inside an unused lab, rapidly creating a medical miracle.  
  
Had they been in a rush or if Gabriel had simply been in bad temper, he would have killed  
  
the nurse and the security guard. He wouldn't have broken a sweat or shed a tear either. As  
  
things were, it struck him as funny how easily everything was going. Clark was the consummate  
  
scientist even working under duress. The Nazi wannabe analyzed a sample of blood, determined  
  
the exact nature of the problem, and formulated a perfect remedy, all in the space of an hour.  
  
Gabriel was impressed despite himself. He realized, belatedly, that Clark was just as intelligent a  
  
man as Adam Kane. With that in mind, the ease of his impending genetic restoration making him  
  
breathless, Gabriel decided to kill his savior quickly rather than slowly.  
  
It would be a way of saying "thank you." Before now, the plan had been one to last for  
  
some time and involve many varied methodologies for anguish. Smiling arrogantly, practically  
  
glowing from the cold indifference that burned inside, Gabriel lounged on a hospital bed. He  
  
almost felt bad about having Tiffany killed. Almost.  
  
"Hey doc, how's it coming? I'm known for perfection, not patience."  
  
Clark looked away from his work for just a moment. "Ironic to be in a hospital without  
  
patience, isn't it?" He looked smug, probably expecting the joke to go over his captor's head.  
  
He was, after all, no less arrogant. When Gabriel broke into a rich chuckle, Clark's face turned  
  
sour. "Not long. I'm rather surprised you couldn't find a cure before now. The genetic damage  
  
you sustained early in your mutant development isn't nearly so dire as you might have believed."  
  
Shrugging, Gabriel lay back with his eyes closed. "Whatever. Just remember, if it doesn't  
  
work, I'll kill you and that little monster daughter of yours."  
  
The lie came easily. It was voiced in exactly the same way as the truth.  
  
Clark didn't know his daughter was already dead.  
  
Unlike Gabriel, he had little validation for his arrogance.  
  
"Why me?" The question came out in a desperate whisper. "Why me? There are at least a  
  
dozen other scientists and probably many dozens of possible cures. Why did you single out my  
  
warehouse and my research? Why me?"  
  
Again, that callous shrug. "Why not? Not like you're special. You're just another human.  
  
You're inferior to me. Complaining doesn't do you much good." Gabriel yawned. "Besides,  
  
without Adam and Mutant X for guards, you were easy to grab. They kept me from other  
  
possible cures. To be honest doc, I was getting desperate. I was two steps away from trying to  
  
clone a mutant from ancient Egypt when, two weeks ago, everything changed. Not sure exactly  
  
what happened but, all of the sudden, I just knew the plan would fail. So I changed direction,  
  
learned about you, and here we are."  
  
Clark stared for a moment then went back to work. "Chatty today, aren't we?"  
  
Rather than answering, Gabriel merely sat up and gave Clark a look. The scientist took a  
  
while to see it, but when he did, his heart froze for one instant. There was nothing in that gaze  
  
save an emotionless annoyance, limitless disinterest. He was nothing to the self-proclaimed god,  
  
perhaps even less than nothing, just a nameless entity. A bug underfoot.  
  
The cure wouldn't change that. Nothing would. To Ashlocke, every person alive was  
  
merely a plaything to be used and discarded. That understanding brought Clark a dark certainty.  
  
If he failed, without any hesitation, he'd be killed. Tiffany would be killed. Never before in his  
  
life had he ever truly thought a person could make his blood run cold, but it did now.  
  
After spending so much of his life idolizing men without souls, now that he came face to  
  
face with one such son of the abyss, he found himself looking away. For Clark, who had easily  
  
and happily murdered men and women for scientific gain and the betterment of "pure" humans,  
  
the idea of his own demise proved sickening. The breadth of a moment's passage lay between  
  
his survival or death at the enemy's hand.  
  
"When this is finished, you will let me go?" He asked quietly.  
  
Gabriel smiled in such a way that Clark shivered. "Of course. Why would I want to keep  
  
you? I'll even be generous and send you to your daughter. Assuming you cure me. If you don't  
  
make my problems go away, then I have to make you. . . go away." Fluttering his fingers to  
  
show how easy it would be, Gabriel started lounging on the bed again.  
  
The next half hour passed in dead silence, broken only when a group of doctors went past  
  
the lab, chattering amongst themselves about a patient. "She's showing signs of awakening. It's  
  
truly remarkable how her body has recovered. I'd never seen genetic damage on that scale  
  
before and now it's almost as if nothing ever happened. Our Jane is quite a resilient woman."  
  
"Yes Gabe, she is. I wonder what she'll be able to tell us about herself once she comes out  
  
of the coma. I'm curious about her name especially."  
  
"What? Don't you think Jane Doe #5 is a good and Godly name?"  
  
Gabriel didn't hear the rest of the conversation. They were far away and he heard that last  
  
question only because his Feral ears were so sensitive. If he'd been paying closer attention to  
  
their words, the talk of genetic damage might have made him want to interrogate the doctors and  
  
Jane Doe #5. As things were, Gabriel was close to falling asleep.  
  
He started a little when Clark said "I'm finished."  
  
"Great. Inject me." Gabriel bared his arm and quickly found his own vein. A sigh of near  
  
ecstasy purred from his lips as the needle penetrated. Chemicals flooded into rich blood, mixing  
  
and dispersing when they reached his heart, making him truly perfect. His eyes shut. He  
  
breathed deeply. He could feel the medicine at work, could sense his body becoming stronger,  
  
his genes repairing themselves. Gabriel felt his singular imperfection of mortality vanishing.  
  
When he looked to Clark, the doctor wore a sickened expression. His lower lip trembled  
  
with repressed hatred and sickened self-loathing. Here was a man who'd dedicated every fiber  
  
of his being to bringing about a second holocaust, one to rival the slaughter of the past. Helping  
  
a mutant grow strong went against every principle he subscribed to. It made him physically ill.  
  
Gabriel didn't care. He was strong again, invincible again, and the feelings of others had  
  
never weighed heavily on his mind. "Nice work. I feel good. Better than ever in fact. It's almost  
  
as if I've been reborn." Eyes still unsympathetic and frozen as the devil's heart, he bowed slightly  
  
to his savior. "I'm a man of my word. You can go."  
  
Clark turned to leave. Behind him, Gabriel raised his hand and was about to launch a  
  
killing energy ball when the doctor turned around. He stood silently, his face white as ash.  
  
Surprised, and vaguely intrigued by the sudden turnaround, Gabriel held the ball. "Something  
  
you forgot doc?" He asked quietly.  
  
"You're going to kill me? I just saved your life." Clark shook his head slowly, his heart  
  
thundering with revelation. "You promised to reunite me with my daughter!"  
  
"What do you think I'm doing?"  
  
Voice breaking with emotion, eyes suddenly turning watery, Clark clenched one fist and  
  
pointed a finger at Gabriel. "You had her killed." It wasn't a question, but it was answered with  
  
a disinterested and vague nod. "I cured you. You promised to let me go and you promised to  
  
reunite me with Tiffany! You prom—!"  
  
Before Clark could say or do anything else, without even waiting for him to finish his final  
  
word, Gabriel heaved an orb of pure lightening. It struck its target dead center and propelled the  
  
man back with such force that his body dented the thick hospital door. Clark's corpse seemed  
  
almost in slow motion as it slid to the floor and lay limply in a heap. There was almost no blood.  
  
It would be easy to clean up.  
  
Gabriel drew close and leaned down. Though he knew the man was dead, he whispered  
  
into his ear. "I'm a man of my word." Then he stood, quickly hid Clark's body, calmly walked  
  
down the hall, passed the pretty nurse who glanced back the way he'd come and asked if  
  
anything had happened she should know about, then walked outside into afternoon sunshine.  
  
The old security guard hadn't even noticed him passing by; he was too busy snoring.  
  
Outside he stood for a few moments, before contacting Kelly, basking in his own  
  
resplendent magnificence. He relayed his position, she promised to be there soon. With a  
  
contented sigh, Gabriel stretched in the warm sun and let himself marvel at how energized he felt.  
  
Exactly two weeks ago, he'd had the premonition of failure. He'd seen no images, heard no  
  
voices, but the feeling had been so strong he'd abandoned the promising Egyptian effort. Until  
  
this second, he'd doubted it had been the right choice. Now, he felt strong and vital. He could  
  
taste the power in his body growing, knew that he was unstoppable.  
  
He'd made the right choice after all.  
  
Fate was denied his sacred flesh.  
  
With his new supremacy came an odd patience. He didn't like waiting but he no longer  
  
felt rushed either. Nothing could stop him. His only flaw was gone. What fear of death he'd  
  
had before no longer existed.  
  
Gabriel waited for Kelly and the jet. . .  
  
. . . and plotted vengeance on Adam and Mutant X as he did.  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
At the unsafe safe house, Jesse stood close by as Charlotte rapidly gathered her clothes  
  
and other meager belongings into two suitcases. She worked methodically and silently. She  
  
never turned to look at him. If not for the slightly coquettish look that came across her face as  
  
she packed her underwear drawer's contents, Jesse would have sworn she didn't know he was  
  
there. Every item she thrust into a case seemed to help her regain something of her old  
  
composure, her old feisty strength.  
  
Jesse wanted to say something. He could tell she was hurting, despite the walls she was  
  
rapidly building. Her friends were dead. Unfortunately what he wanted to say and what needed  
  
to be heard were unlikely to be the same thing. Ten thousand cliched platitudes ran through his  
  
brain. Things like "it's okay," "you're going to be fine," and the ever popular and completely  
  
moronic "this is all part of God's plan." Nothing he could think to say seemed worth saying.  
  
As she walked toward a desk, Charlotte suddenly doubled over. Even before he knew he  
  
was moving, Jesse was holding her. He rubbed her back gently as she made gasping noises, as  
  
if unable to catch a breath. She clutched at him like a drowning woman clinging to the last  
  
fragment of driftwood and hope.  
  
"You're alive." He whispered reassuringly into her ear. "You're alive and you're okay.  
  
We can deal with the rest."  
  
She responded to those words only by holding him tighter. If not for the circumstances,  
  
such an embrace would have been welcome. The way things were, Jesse wished that she had no  
  
reason to hug him. He wished she was safe and sound and happy. He'd been the first person,  
  
after Adam, who forgave her after the first time they'd met. Some people would have been glad  
  
she suffered now, but all Jesse could think as he held her close, as the tears finally came in sharp  
  
bursts of pain, was how much he wished the bad things had never happened.  
  
Part of him kept trying to rationalize the whole twisted mess. The problem was that it was  
  
all crazy. The killer Charlotte called Duncan had shot his partner after giving him free reign to  
  
violate her. That alone was madness but Jesse kept thinking of the other mutants in the safe  
  
house and how they'd been slaughtered when the killers could easily have just used their  
  
subdermal governors. Hidden behind the safe house garage was a police car with two dead  
  
officers, the men who'd come in response to Kari Morgan's desperate call for help. The killers  
  
must have forced them to contact their headquarters and say nothing was wrong after all, false  
  
alarm, then killed them too. He couldn't wrap his mind around the brutal savagery. It was  
  
insane, just insane.  
  
Her face pressed against his shoulder, Jesse couldn't hear what Charlotte suddenly  
  
whispered. "What did you say?" He asked quietly, smoothing her hair with one hand and  
  
holding her with the other. The steady movement of her chest and the strong beat of her heart  
  
pulsed through Jesse's chest. He was gently rocking her from side to side, the simple rhythm  
  
familiar from infancy, calming her. She no longer sobbed and when he spoke she met his eyes.  
  
"I said," Charlotte had to stop and take a deep breath, "I asked if you'd please not tell  
  
anyone about this. Me breaking down." There was something close to desperation in her voice.  
  
Her eyes were still brimming with unshed tears, so filled with pain.  
  
"Yeah. Sure, if that's what you want." Jesse smiled and stood, lifting her up with him.  
  
"Why don't you sit down for a while. I can get the rest of your stuff together. The desk is the last  
  
thing that has to be emptied, right?" Graciously attentive, he walked her to a nearby chair. As  
  
she sat, Charlotte nodded gently. A soft smile formed on her lips.  
  
"Thanks. For everything."  
  
He waved away her words and began moving the last of her few belongings. A photo  
  
album of old family photos, mostly father/daughter pictures, was plopped into one suitcase,  
  
followed swiftly by a year's accumulation of odd little nicknacks. A few assorted political  
  
buttons and brochures and various receipts and such followed. For someone who didn't own  
  
much, Charlotte was something of a packrat.  
  
Jesse next brought out three large notebooks, the last of the desk's contents. They were  
  
very plain, typical store bought items, and he wouldn't have given them a second thought if one  
  
hadn't fallen to the floor and opened. Kneeling down to pick it up, he saw something that froze  
  
him in place. A number of words had been written across the page, several scratched out.  
  
What was left he read out loud "the book of Hope by Charlotte Cooke."  
  
"Oh!" Before Jesse could get over the shock of finding the present day version of a book  
  
he'd been given from thirty years in the future, not to mention discovering it's author and sender  
  
were one in the same, Charlotte had the notebook in her arms as well as its two siblings. "You  
  
weren't supposed to see that." She said quietly, turning a bright shade of embarrassed red.  
  
Then she sighed and seemed to deflate. "Not that it really matters right now."  
  
She turned toward the bed and slipped the notebooks inside one suitcase then gently shut  
  
them both. For a moment, she stood quietly, not moving. Just standing. Her head was still.  
  
Shoulders a little slumped, muscles loose, her eyes focused downward.  
  
Then Charlotte turned to Jesse and stared at him with such intensity that he took a step  
  
back. It wasn't a malicious gaze nor one of sadness. Her eyes were filled with curiosity. Pure  
  
inquisitiveness shown about her like a halo. "When I called Sanctuary, you quoted something I'd  
  
just written. How did you know? And before I fainted, you called me 'wildcat' just like my father  
  
used to."  
  
She raised an eye brow. "Been spying?"  
  
Jesse shrugged. "It's a long story and we don't have time for me to tell it to you. Eventually,  
  
someone's going to come here. Whether it's the buddies of the men who did all of this or more  
  
police, doesn't matter. We've got to be gone." He looked down at her suitcases, resting upon  
  
the bed, twin witnesses to their conversation.  
  
"Promise to tell you everything once we're back at Sanctuary. It's a very long story."  
  
Jesse smiled and held out a hand. "Here. Let me take those."  
  
Charlotte shook her head. "No. I've got them. They're pretty much all I've got left." A  
  
pause and then a deep sigh. She sat down on her bed, the cases on either side of her shapely  
  
hips. "I'm alone again." This time, the tears came easily, yet softly.  
  
A hand on her shoulder. She looked up at Jesse. "You're not alone."  
  
She leaned against his hand, resting her cheek then kissing his wrist. "Thanks."  
  
"Okay to go now?" He asked. For a moment she considered his question, then she rose,  
  
her fingers wrapped around his. "Shalimar's out in the garage. She insisted on checking out your  
  
car. She wants to make sure there are no hidden transmitters or anything."  
  
The faintest ghost of a smile appeared on Charlotte's face. "Is she always so paranoid?"  
  
She asked quietly.  
  
"Yeah. But don't let that bother you. I've told her you're one of the good guys now."  
  
She looked at him again, such a curious stare. "Long story?" He nodded. "I want to hear  
  
the whole thing when we get to Sanctuary. Everything, no matter what. No holding out on me."  
  
Her dark eyes locked with Jesse's sapphires. "Promise me something?"  
  
The question came so suddenly that Jesse could only shrug. "What?"  
  
"My friends. . . ." Charlotte paused, turned her eyes toward the floor. "No matter what  
  
Adam decides to do about me, I want you to promise you won't let him put me with anyone.  
  
Those people were after me. Me specifically. I don't know why, but I can't let anyone else be  
  
put in danger. Promise you won't let Adam put anyone else in danger."  
  
Jesse smiled gently and hugged her. "I promise you Charlotte, we won't let you or anyone  
  
else be hurt by those bastards again. We're going to find them and stop them. And I swear, I'll  
  
keep you safe."  
  
Her arms wrapped around him, she sighed and wished they were together under better  
  
circumstances. "You really must have a story to tell."  
  
Jesse snorted.  
  
"You have no idea."  
  
  
  
  
  
In the garage, Shalimar was on her back on the cool concrete floor as she checked under  
  
Charlotte's car for tracking devices. She had to work hard to resist the urge to just go to sleep.  
  
The feline in her didn't like the chill floor, but the human was tired and hot and just wanted a rest.  
  
Even now, nearly an hour after it had happened, she was still having trouble believing that she  
  
and Jesse had come to the safe house in the Double Helix to save the day.  
  
"Now our ship is a piece of junk and Jesse's gone completely bonkers." She grumbled as  
  
she worked, methodically examining every nook and cranny. Her hands were greasy, the scent  
  
of oil filled her every breath. She yawned. "He's lost his mind. That's the only explanation. I  
  
don't care what he's been reading, this is nuts."  
  
Just before he'd gone with Charlotte to her room to pack, he'd taken Shalimar aside and  
  
told her something strange. It hadn't made a lot of sense but she'd understood that he thought it  
  
should. "He said something about a letter and some book. How could a letter or a book make a  
  
man risk his life? God, Jesse, you could have died!" Shalimar wished he were there right then so  
  
she could yell at him properly. Never before in her life had she seen him do something so  
  
completely suicidal.  
  
"Well, this was a waste of time." She muttered while crawling out from under the car.  
  
"Don't know why I bothered. Even if there were some kind of tracking device, the Mutant X  
  
daredevil would probably insist on leaving it in place. I'll bet he'd love to have to try and phase  
  
the car while we're trying to get away." Shalimar stretched. "He's acting like he's falling in love  
  
with that sooty haired drama queen and he's only seeing her now for the second time."  
  
Shalimar threw her hands into the air. "Not my place. I just wonder if this day can get any  
  
more insane."  
  
Less than a second later, she got her answer in the form of a blow to the back of her head.  
  
Without any warning from her Feral senses, Shalimar was almost knocked out. Weaving almost  
  
drunkenly, she tried to spin around and fight. The second blow caught her fully in the face. Her  
  
vision blurred and her eyes couldn't focus on whoever it was attacking. The man's appearance,  
  
for she was sure it was a man, was too watery blurry to make out.  
  
His third blow made her stop trying. Shalimar hit a wall and slid down it to the floor. A  
  
small trickle of blood ran down from her lower lip. The man who'd knocked her out stepped  
  
closer and pressed a machine to the back of her neck. A hum then a snap followed.  
  
"You won't be causing any trouble now cat woman." The voice was rough, dark, but  
  
controlled and cold as ice water. "I can still salvage this mission. You're a better prize than little  
  
miss harlot Charlotte anyway."  
  
The man laughed darkly at that and quickly took Shalimar to a waiting truck. He threw  
  
her on as several other men got off.  
  
"Orders sir?" One of the new people asked as he surveyed the area and kept it covered  
  
with a machine gun.  
  
The man with Shalimar viewed his acquisition. His expression turned to a death frost, a  
  
murderous chill. He turned toward the new killers.  
  
"End this."  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
Emma DeLauro had exactly three seconds. In that time, her entire life flashed before her  
  
eyes, every instant flowing into every other, a full review. Something rushed past, shifting strands  
  
of her hair. A few drifted downward, as if severed from her scalp. The side of her face flared  
  
with pain so suddenly that her hand darted to the burning spot even as she realized what had just  
  
happened. Her mind raced beyond light speed. She knew that a bullet had just grazed her  
  
temple, that it had been fired by the man in front of her.  
  
More importantly, she knew that he'd missed on purpose.  
  
"Brennan, no!" Without hesitation, Emma struck Brennan's arms as he raised his hands  
  
and launched an arcing stream of lightening, throwing his aim off target even as Adam shoved her  
  
out of harm's way. All three ended up falling backwards. Brennan's expression was stunned  
  
shock, a theme for the whole trio.  
  
Adam was on his feet first. He started to rush the shooter but stopped.  
  
The gunman was kneeling, his pistol lying untouched by his side, tears pouring. "Oh God,  
  
I'm sorry Katherine. I had no choice, baby, I couldn't do it." He held himself and shook. In the  
  
afternoon light, he seemed harmless. A broken man. There was nothing to fear from him, if there  
  
ever truly had been.  
  
With Adam's help, Emma got to her feet. Beside them, Brennan clumsily rose, wishing  
  
he'd skipped his last drink. It had snuck up on him. "Why did you stop me from zapping him?"  
  
He asked quietly. "He tried to kill you. Didn't he?" The question echoed in the empty street,  
  
fortunately it seemed that everyone was inside. Not quite able to fathom what was happening,  
  
Brennan just kept staring at the gunman.  
  
"No, Brennan. He missed on purpose." Emma took a step forward, but stopped when  
  
she felt Adam's hand on her shoulder. She turned back, saw the fear in his eyes. It could  
  
easily have gone differently. Her racing heart and pessimistic side knew how bad the situation  
  
almost was. "It's okay. I can sense every thought, every emotion that's pouring out of him. He's  
  
terrified."  
  
Reluctantly, Adam stepped back. He trusted her instincts, yet it was obvious from the  
  
way his muscles remained tensed that he would move at the first sign of danger. She knew that  
  
he'd gladly take the next bullet for her, that he'd die to protect her.  
  
Emma was simultaneously touched beyond compare and terrified. The only outward sign  
  
of her inner turmoil, a faint wavering of her mask of calm certainty. Still, she leaned down,  
  
almost kneeling, and brought the gunman's face close to her own. "Who are you?"  
  
"Devon Bowden. He has my wife."  
  
"Who has your wife? What's his name?"  
  
"Sheckt. Aaron M. Sheckt. I don't know who he is. The bastard contacted me through  
  
another man, an ice-cold bastard named Duncan Ladd. They kidnaped my wife." Devon raised  
  
a hand to his face to cover his eyes, either to relieve the pain in his head or out of shame. The  
  
move made both Adam and Brennan draw closer, their stances plainly defensive. Their  
  
concern for her brought a smile to Emma's lips.  
  
She tried to show them Devon was, despite evidence to the contrary, harmless. She  
  
touched his shoulder. And she reached down and took his pistol. She held it up for her  
  
teammates to see. "They gave this to you?" At his emphatic nod, Emma passed the weapon  
  
back to Adam.  
  
He looked it over for a moment before handing it to Brennan. The former criminal  
  
examined it closely, scrutinizing every detail, then shrugged and tucked it into his coat. "I've  
  
never seen this kind of make or model."  
  
"Ladd said it was just for me. He said I had to kill Emma DeLauro and Brennan Mulwray  
  
when they came out of this club." Voice breaking, Devon sobbed again. "They're going to kill  
  
Katherine now. I'm sorry baby."  
  
"Why did Sheckt want this done?" Emma asked, her voice keeping him in the present.  
  
"Where are they?"  
  
"I don't know. They only took me to a warehouse out by Frost Lake. They never said  
  
why they wanted this done. Just to do it or they'd kill her." A tremor ran through his body, as  
  
if an earthquake was occurring inside his chest. Devon's eyes met Emma's. Images and words  
  
flashed between them. She knew almost instantly that Aaron Sheckt had never shown his face  
  
nor allowed this man to hear his true voice. Duncan Ladd, however, appeared in stark reality.  
  
Behind her, Adam was activating a small comlink pin he'd recently built, a simple device  
  
with a tracker built in, gold plated, with the letters M and X in intaglio print. "Jesse, Shalimar,  
  
this is Adam. We've got a situation. How fast can the Helix be ready for a flight to Frost Lake?"  
  
There was no reply. Static and a high-pitched whine filled the air. "Jesse? Shalimar? Do  
  
you read me?" Still nothing. Adam adjusted nearly invisible switches on the back of the pin,  
  
boosting its gain and rotating through frequencies in search of a better connection. "Can anyone  
  
hear me?" After several minutes, he gave up.  
  
"Nothing. It's possible we're being jammed."  
  
"Ashlocke?" Brennan asked, a worried timber in his voice. Memories of Shalimar's  
  
capture, of Gabriel's icy arrogance, and of the recent battle against his Links just this morning  
  
rushed through his head. Fear for his friends made his heart pound even faster than before.  
  
Adam frowned. "Unlikely. I doubt he's got anyone on his team with the skills. We can't  
  
rule him out right now, but my guess is this Sheckt character. Obviously, he's been watching us  
  
for a while. He knew the three of us were in this club."  
  
Looking up, Emma brushed a loose strand of hair from her eye. "I don't sense anyone  
  
nearby that might be a threat. If he's watching, it's with something high-tech."  
  
"Right. We've got to assume the bastard knows we're still alive. Emma, you and I are  
  
going to Frost Lake. Brennan, I want you to take Devon back to Sanctuary and—." Before  
  
Adam could finish, Emma was on her feet and staring at him. An argument passed between  
  
them, one made with eyes, thoughts, and emotions.  
  
After a moment, he sighed deeply. "Alright Emma. You're right."  
  
"You know it's the smart thing to do." She replied, reaching out to touch the side of his  
  
face comfortingly. "Don't be mad."  
  
"Never."  
  
Brennan gave them both a curious look and raised an eyebrow. "Um, not to sound like a  
  
guy who's completely lost in the woods, but what the heck are you two talking about? Seriously,  
  
what are we doing here? One second, this guy's trying to kill Emma, then we're feeling sorry for  
  
him, then our comlinks are jammed, and now Adam's got a plan but. . . . Well? What are you  
  
two talking about?" He shook his head, rubbing his temples. "This day is giving me a migraine."  
  
Smiling apologetically, Emma said "you and Adam are going to Frost Lake. He didn't  
  
want me to be alone with Devon, but I'm certain he's safe. Crazy as that sounds, I know he's on  
  
our side. Now, I'm going to take him back to Sanctuary and try to help him remember anything  
  
that might help the two of you once you reach Frost Lake. Plus, I can take a whack at trying to  
  
get the comlinks back online. Jesse's been showing me how they work." She smiled, and  
  
nodded toward Adam.  
  
Although it was obvious from the way his eyes strayed to Devon, then the slight bulge in  
  
Brennan's coat where his pistol waited, that Adam was less than certain about leaving Emma  
  
with the man, he knew every word she's said was true. Everything that had passed between  
  
them in that exchange was true.  
  
He could go back to Sanctuary, but past fixing the comlinks, he'd be useless. Normally,  
  
his place was there, coordinating things. In this case, he knew nothing that might help. By all  
  
appearances, Aaron Sheckt was a complete unknown, a new enemy. Devon might know  
  
something, but Adam couldn't help him remember. Brennan wasn't qualified to fix the comlinks  
  
or to interrogate Devon. He was an obvious choice for the field, given his electrical powers.  
  
Emma's telempathic gifts would allow her to sort through her almost assassin's mind and she  
  
might be able to get the comlinks working. Despite the obvious merits of sending her to  
  
Sanctuary, Adam was afraid to leave her alone with Devon.  
  
For obvious reasons, he didn't trust the man.  
  
He did trust Emma, though, and that was ultimately why he nodded finally.  
  
"Brennan, much as I hate to ask you to regress after you've come so far as a part of  
  
Mutant X, can you hot-wire a car? Emma can take our's back to Sanctuary, but we'll need one  
  
to get to Frost Lake." Her hand held his for a moment, a gentle squeeze to reassure him.  
  
Suddenly, Devon rose from the ground. He almost got his throat crushed by Adam, who  
  
immediately moved to protect Emma and attack him. Before anyone could do anything  
  
damaging, the dark man stepped back, holding his hands high in a gesture of surrender. "Whoa,  
  
careful. I don't want to hurt anyone."  
  
"Could have fooled me." Brennan murmured, so softly that no one heard.  
  
Moving very slowly, Devon reached into his pocket and withdrew a set of keys on a flimsy  
  
metal ring. "Sheckt gave me a car. You can use it. They wouldn't expect anyone else to use it."  
  
There was a sort of quiet desperation in the man's voice. It made his words harsh, his tone  
  
shaky. "They can't know I failed. They've got to think I succeeded."  
  
No one spoke. According to Devon, if he failed, his wife was dead. He couldn't allow  
  
himself to believe Sheckt knew what had just occurred.  
  
Adam hoped he was right.  
  
Without waiting, Brennan took the offered keys. "Thanks. Now, go wait in the car. We  
  
need to talk for a minute." Even if he'd wanted to stay, Devon wouldn't have argued with  
  
Brennan. Something in the man's eyes said that this wasn't a man to cross. Not today.  
  
Still trembling, the almost assassin climbed into the Mutant X car, momentarily admiring  
  
it. He shared Brennan's taste for vintage vehicles, but even that didn't distract him long.  
  
Once he was out of earshot, Brennan reached inside his coat and drew out the silenced  
  
pistol. "Emma, take this. I know you think this guy is on the level, but I'm not so sure. I've got  
  
a feeling he's not sharing everything with us." A quick glance toward their car showed that the  
  
man was sitting motionless in the front passenger seat, perhaps crying. Turning back to Emma,  
  
he continued, "maybe I'm just being paranoid, but I've gotten it right before. Watch him." With  
  
those parting words, Brennan headed for Devon's car, keys jangling in hand.  
  
Emma hesitated only a moment before slipping the pistol into her clothes, hiding it from  
  
sight. "I'm not sure if that gesture was sweet or just creepy."  
  
Adam smiled, though he felt a sense of unease in the air. Stepping close, he wrapped his  
  
arms around her and was hugged back easily. The embrace made them both breathless as their  
  
hearts beat in time. His fingertips sifted through her hair as her's drifted gently over the muscles  
  
of his shoulders. A sigh of contentment passed between them.  
  
"Be careful." She whispered into his ear before letting go.  
  
He ran his hand through her hair a final time, then kissed the very tip of her nose. It made  
  
her giggle. "You too."  
  
Then they separated. Adam turned and ran to Brennan, who had just started revving the  
  
engine of Devon's car. She, in turn, opened the driver's door of the Mutant X car and quickly  
  
started it with an easy turn of the key. Emma watched in the rearview mirror as Adam and  
  
Brennan started on their journey to Frost Lake, knowing that her consort, the man she loved  
  
more than life itself, was watching her as well. Long before she left the club's parking lot, a  
  
feeling of uncertainty settled inside.  
  
A strong, instinctive nervousness made her heart beat faster, her breath go shallow, and  
  
her mind surge with unwanted worries. The man sitting close by, eyes focused downward, hands  
  
in lap, wasn't the source. Within her thoughts, near her mind's very edge, rested a truth she  
  
resisted considering. She wanted to know what she was feeling, wanted to put it into words, but  
  
at the same time, Emma was desperate not to know.  
  
Yet, as she drove toward Sanctuary, her Psionic talents keeping Devon unconscious for  
  
the trip, Emma reached an inescapable conclusion. One single thought reverberated inside her  
  
skull. It rattled about then exploded into the center of her mind.  
  
The source of her unease, slithering cold and alien inside her brain, was the certainty that  
  
she and Adam were somehow responsible for what was occurring. Though she had no reason  
  
to think that, her instincts told her it was the truth. As Emma drew ever closer to Sanctuary, she  
  
felt the weight of an apocalyptic future weighing down on her soul.  
  
"This is the price for coming back together," she whispered to herself. A glance in the  
  
rearview mirror showed her the city. Her memories showed what it could become, thirty years  
  
forward and millions of lives from now. Though the rational side of her mind rose in protest, the  
  
certainty that she and Adam were somehow to blame didn't go away.  
  
Somehow, she knew that fate was trying to reassert the darkness. The future that had  
  
been, might still come to pass.  
  
It wasn't fear that plagued her.  
  
It was guilt.  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
At Jacob's Memorial hospital, Gabriel Ashlocke waited on the helicopter landing pad  
  
next to the parking lot. The jet his people had acquired recently, and that Kelly had been taught  
  
to fly, hovered over head, its VTOL systems bringing it to a gentle landing. Almost like the  
  
choppers the pad had been intended for. A door opened and Gabriel climbed inside,  
  
immediately feeling a pleasurable sensation as air-conditioned coolness spilled over his face.  
  
"Where to now? Back to the base?" Kelly asked from the pilot's seat. In her voice was  
  
the sycophantic obedience and eagerness that characterized all of Gabriel's followers.  
  
He considered a moment. Where to go? He was perfect again, invincible. Mutant X  
  
would have to be destroyed eventually, but was it necessary to attack them now? Gabriel didn't  
  
feel like fighting a battle. Not even one he could finally win.  
  
His lips curved into a pleasant smile. "Back to base. Now that I'm cured, I want everyone  
  
to see. I want all of my people to feel the blissful certainty of our coming victories. They deserve  
  
that much."  
  
Kelly nodded and closed the side door with a series of keystrokes. Then she manipulated  
  
levers and switches, pulled back on her controls, and the jet rose easily into the air. So effortless  
  
was the ascent, that Gabriel did not once lose his footing nor even sway. As his blonde  
  
pyromaniac lover piloted, he took a seat in the luscious surroundings of the passenger  
  
compartment.  
  
"Tiffany's dead?" He asked calmly.  
  
"Torched."  
  
A chuckle.  
  
They might have been discussing the score of a recent baseball game. Or perhaps some  
  
local political squabble.  
  
"You know, I almost felt bad about killing Clark." Gabriel said quietly, leaning back in a  
  
lounge that had been installed just for him. Long brown hair dangling on all sides, eyes sealed,  
  
he stretched. So calm, so disinterested with the world. "Almost. That man might have been  
  
dreaming of a new Reich, but he knew what he was doing. I feel great."  
  
Setting the autopilot, Kelly glanced back. "His psycho spawn tried to kill me. No need to  
  
feel any regret over her."  
  
Another chuckle.  
  
"Glad you're okay." Ashlocke said before yawning again. "What's the in-flight movie?  
  
Or maybe there's food, because I'm very hungry." His leering gaze fell upon Kelly as she slid  
  
between the pilot's and copilot's chairs to enter the back, her shapely body and long legs.  
  
"Hungry for a lot of things."  
  
She smiled. "We can take care of that. But I'd like to ask a question first."  
  
Gabriel's eyes narrowed just a fraction of a millimeter. The impulse to kill very nearly  
  
overpowered him, but it was repressed finally. It was a childish rage that came and went in an  
  
instant. Still, that instant nearly cost Kelly her life.  
  
He often wondered if anyone realized how easy it was for him to kill. Almost like breathing  
  
sometimes or perhaps sneezing, since the act was fueled by sudden impulse.  
  
"What's your question?" He asked finally, patting his lap.  
  
Before speaking, Kelly sat upon him, and shivered with desire. His hands were on her,  
  
increasing the heat between them. "What about Clark's wife, the one working for Trinity Inc.?  
  
Shouldn't we take care of her too?"  
  
The coldest smile formed on Gabriel's face. "Nah. She's not important. I've been cured.  
  
I've got no further need for scientists."  
  
He sat up and kissed Kelly. "But I do have a need for a certain young woman." The  
  
breathy whisper took her breath away, just as Gabriel wanted. She did everything he wanted.  
  
That was why she existed, to serve him.  
  
While he was enjoying a few of Kelly's services, Gabriel's mind drifted back to the  
  
hospital, to the conversation he'd overheard. Jane Doe #5. A woman recovering from severe  
  
genetic damage. "Awakening," the doctors had said. The mystery intrigued him only for a few  
  
seconds, but in that time, he felt a strange anxiousness.  
  
Gabriel wondered why he should be afraid of a woman he didn't know.  
  
He didn't know that by the end of the day, when the sun set and the darkness crept back  
  
to claim the world, everyone on Earth's fate would be decided. Not even this false god could  
  
sense that thirty years of suffering might be at hand, that millions upon millions of deaths might  
  
soon come. Nor could he feel that the name Jane Doe #5 was a harbinger for slaughter.  
  
Of course, Gabriel wouldn't have cared if he had known.  
  
He was too busy enjoying the pleasures of his favorite harem girl.  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
Perfect silence dominated the downstairs area as Jesse descended. It was a peculiar  
  
quiescence, filled with an unpalatable foreboding. Shadows stretched long and nested in corners  
  
like packs of black furred rats. Half the lights had been destroyed in the massacre, the other half  
  
lay on the floor or under bits of furniture. Nerves already tense, Jesse felt himself going into a  
  
fighter's defensive half-crouch as he moved. Unease crept into his battle weary mind.  
  
Behind him, Charlotte also felt that something wasn't quite right. What training she had  
  
kicked in. Though far from the capable fighter, she raised her hands, ready to block or punch.  
  
Muscles twitched under her clothes. A frightened yet determined gleam was in her eyes.  
  
Gesturing silently, Jesse motioned for her to wait at the foot of the stairs. She nodded back,  
  
slightly bending at the waist to present less of a target.  
  
The silence was too complete. It felt. . . hostile.  
  
Jesse took a deep breath and phased out, his body seeming to become translucent. With  
  
practiced ease, he moved through the nearest wall, actually leaving the safe house. He let his  
  
eyes sweep through his entire field of vision. Late afternoon sun glared down from heaven. A  
  
breeze bent several trees just enough to be noticeable. Everything seemed as serene as an  
  
Andrew Wyeth painting. Jesse felt some of the emotional tension flow out him. Without  
  
warning, a mere second before he would have taken a breath, and thus solidified, someone  
  
shouted and three men leapt from cover, raising formidable weapons.  
  
Diving backward, he opened his mouth, breathed, then knocked Charlotte to the floor a  
  
hair's breadth before automatic weapon's fire stitched across the wall. "Stay down! Don't  
  
move!" He yelled unnecessarily.  
  
The bullets raced by overhead, making a sound that might have been equaled only by a  
  
bee that had developed supersonic flight capability. Above them, the wall disintegrated,  
  
shredded by death. Harsh thuds and strident clanks indicated hits on simple boards and metal  
  
supports. Jesse thought he heard a few soft thumps that might have been over stuffed furniture  
  
dying in the next room. No matter the mark, it was quite some time before the weapons fell  
  
silent.  
  
Jesse yanked Charlotte to her feet. "While they're reloading, we've got to move!" They  
  
started running together. She took the lead since she knew her way around better and had  
  
almost reached the front door when a man appeared in the open frame.  
  
Even as the killer raised his weapon, something that looked like a rifle that had shrunk in  
  
the laundry, she was attacking. Charlotte drove a fist into his face and shoved his gun away.  
  
Despite the facial blow, the man held his ground and counterattacked. She barely dodged under  
  
his punch. He fought with a professional's precise movements, striking repeatedly, but an  
  
opening let her give him a stomachache with a well placed fist. He retreated, only to raise his  
  
weapon again. At point-blank range, he opened fire. A fraction of a second faster, Charlotte  
  
dove to the side and nearly dislocated her shoulder as she struck a wall and hit the floor.  
  
Massing out kept Jesse alive. Bullets slammed into his nearly impervious chest and fell to  
  
the ground, harmless as ball bearings.  
  
Realizing he was shooting the wrong mutant, the killer started to draw a bead on Charlotte  
  
but a kick to the groin made him forget how his gun worked. Not to mention everything else.  
  
He groaned hoarsely and doubled over, hands covering the injured vulnerable spot. Another  
  
kick, delivered to his skull, sent him reeling.  
  
"You okay?" Jesse asked, kneeling at her side.  
  
"Yeah, still standing." She glanced toward the open door, knowing that it would be  
  
suicide to try a run for freedom. There were still gunmen out there. "How are we going to get  
  
out of here?"  
  
"Divide and conquer." Retrieving the killer's rifle, Jesse held it out to Charlotte. "Take  
  
this. I'm going to try and circle around, get in their flank." A smile formed on his lips, the kind  
  
that only comes just before doing something completely insane. "Listen to me, General Jesse."  
  
Charlotte shook her head emphatically. "Do I look like Rambo? I don't know the first  
  
thing about guns! I've never even been taught self-defense!"  
  
"Crash course. Aim and shoot." Jesse kept his eyes on the doorway. "Listen, I don't  
  
need you to be sniper woman. Just make them keep their heads down long enough for me to  
  
take them out. Keep me safe. I trust you." He squeezed her shoulder and, in that moment, both  
  
knew that it was going to be okay. They were going to survive. It wasn't too crazy a plan.  
  
Jesse closed his eyes, breathed deep, phasing out once more. At his partner's nod, he  
  
dove through the wall, drawing air immediately on the other side and running. A hailstorm of  
  
lead followed immediately, but it was answered by the harsh hacking snarl of individual reports.  
  
He was lucky. Their attackers had been surprised by Charlotte's cover fire. Without hesitation,  
  
they'd turned to fight her, seemingly forgetting about him. Legs pounding, he curved toward  
  
them, approaching their line from the side and slightly behind.  
  
Too late, the killers remembered a certain blonde haired, baby-blue-eyed mutant. One of  
  
the men had enough time to bring his rifle to bear before taking a fist to the face. The weapon  
  
snarled cruelly, sending a stream of bullets out that came so close, they ripped his shirt.  
  
A few seconds later, his lady commando rejoined him. "That was almost too easy." She  
  
said, which earned her a rather stunned stare. "Kidding."  
  
Shaking his head, Jesse started searching one of their attackers. Then he stopped and  
  
turned to Charlotte, who was still holding her captured rifle, cradling it much like a mother with  
  
child. "Hey, why don't you use your toxin on them? It'll be a hell of lot easier to interrogate  
  
them if they're suddenly on our side."  
  
A darkness came onto her face. "You're thinking of the old Charlotte Cooke, the one  
  
willing to deal with the devil for a chance at revenge. I'm not like that anymore. I don't have that  
  
right, I'm not God. Playing with people's souls, Jesse, it gets to you. Believe me." For a long  
  
moment, she was silent as she leaned down to check one of the assassin's pockets. Before the  
  
silence grew too uneasy, Charlotte let out a sigh and said, "what happened with Adam taught me  
  
a lesson. Can't be that person again, no way." As those words left her mouth, she withdrew a  
  
slip of paper, half crumpled but completely readable.  
  
"Besides. Why do all that work when we've got everything we need right here."  
  
Jesse took the note and examined it. He read quickly, his gaze going to Charlotte's after  
  
just a few seconds. "I know where this is. It's an address for a motel off the highway. We can  
  
be there in five minutes if they didn't trash your car."  
  
"Then lets get moving. These guys aren't going to stay down forever."  
  
She left the rifle behind and headed back into the safe house to gather her suitcases,  
  
discarded earlier. Jesse opened the garage and made a quick cursory exam of Charlotte's car.  
  
No bullets had punctured it, no bombs had been attached, and he couldn't find a single tracking  
  
device. The men hadn't expected to fail.  
  
Just as he slammed down the hood, his partner returned. "You said you know where the  
  
bad guys went?" She asked as she threw her things into the trunk.  
  
"Yeah. Land's Inn motel. I've been there before."  
  
A softly flirtatious and genuine smile formed on her face. "I'm jealous." Before Jesse  
  
could respond, or manage to stop blushing, she was in the passenger seat. She twisted the keys  
  
in the ignition as he climbed in. "A benefit of having a used and customized car: its starts the  
  
instant I turn the key. Plus, this baby can fly." She shifted gear before Jesse could even reach for  
  
the stick between them.  
  
The engine roared to life when he hit the gas. Leaping backwards like a pouncing cougar,  
  
Charlotte's car surged with power. It took Jesse a second or two to adjust himself to it. When  
  
he was ready, he slammed the gas pedal to the floor, set his sights on Land's Inn, and found  
  
himself loving the feel of speed even as he worried about Shalimar.  
  
In less than half the time he'd expected, they were arriving. "The Helix couldn't have  
  
done better." He muttered, surprised and pleased.  
  
Charlotte said something under her breath that might have been "especially now that its  
  
junk," but Jesse preferred to think it was "at last we're having some luck." Regardless of her  
  
choice of words, the raven haired woman had an expression on her face that could only be  
  
worry. And fatigue. She looked extremely tired. Her day had gone from one extreme to the  
  
next; she'd faced hell.  
  
It surprised Jesse how resilient she was. When he and Shalimar had first arrived, she'd  
  
been near a meltdown. She'd fainted. Now, having recovered from the shock of finding her  
  
friends dead and coming dangerously close to being raped, Charlotte seemed to have tapped a  
  
reserve of strength. Her movements were amateurish, she was probably subconsciously copying  
  
things she'd seen in a movie, but she was ready to fight. No one who saw her eyes, filled with  
  
sadness and anger but most of all determination, could doubt that.  
  
Keeping close to her, Jesse couldn't help but smile. She reminded him of Emma back  
  
when she'd first joined Mutant X.  
  
He wondered if. . . no, Adam wouldn't agree to that.  
  
Would he?  
  
From inside a room, number 7 to be precise, Jesse heard a woman's muffled scream. He  
  
didn't know for sure if it was Shalimar, he's ears weren't that good. The only thing that  
  
mattered was that she was in trouble.  
  
Gesturing for Charlotte to stay back, Jesse ran to the door and hit it with all his strength.  
  
The wood was almost paper thin and extremely fragile. It exploded inward, a shower of  
  
splinters blasting out from the suddenly dislocated hinges. He cracked his elbow on the heavy  
  
metal lock that was still firmly in place, absurdly hovering where the knob had been.  
  
There were two men in the room and one woman, face down on the bed, with long blonde  
  
hair. One was strangling her. Jesse went for that man, a single punch taking most of the fight  
  
out of him.  
  
The other man tried to go for a gun, which he'd left lying on a graffiti carved night stand.  
  
Seconds before his fingers could touch the handle, Charlotte was hitting him in the back. He  
  
spun around and ducked another punch. She danced back a few steps as he tried a sweeping  
  
uppercut. Unfortunately, that wasn't all he was doing. Moving with an almost feline grace, the  
  
man ducked down and spun, delivering a powerful back kick that sent Charlotte flying.  
  
A mirror shattered as she slammed into it. Her breath was knocked out, her head swam,  
  
and warmth slid down the back of her neck. The glass had cut into scalp.  
  
The man came straight for her. He jumped and performed a midair somersault when she  
  
tried to sweep his feet out from under him. Charlotte got kicked in the face as she tried to roll  
  
away from the fight.  
  
"You're mine, gene joke." The man hissed as he took hold of her head and prepared to  
  
snap her neck.  
  
Charlotte had just enough time to wish she'd had more time before a sickening SNAP  
  
filled the room. Then everything was still. Then a body hit the floor and lay lifeless.  
  
"You okay?" Jesse asked quietly.  
  
Slowly, she opened her eyes, turned.  
  
The man who had been about to kill her lay on the floor, his head slightly askew. Charlotte  
  
looked at the corpse then stared up at Jesse. "You saved my life again. Thanks." She let him  
  
help her up, his arms pulling her close to him.. So close.  
  
A very faint trace of a smile touched his face. "You're welcome. Can you check on her?"  
  
He asked, pointing toward the woman on the bed, who still lay face down.  
  
Unquestioning, she approached and rolled her over. "It's not Shalimar." She said,  
  
disappointedly. "She's a little unconscious too." Charlotte checked the woman over, pulse and  
  
breathing, then sighed with relief. "Aside from some nasty bruises around her neck, I think she'll  
  
be okay. Pulse feels good. She's breathing fine."  
  
At that moment, the woman's eyes shot open. She scrambled backwards on the bed,  
  
tucked her legs to her chest, and tried to hide her face against her knees. Visibly trembling, she  
  
started speaking very fast. "Don't hurt me anymore, please, don't hurt me."  
  
"It's okay," they said at the same time, "we're friends."  
  
The woman looked up very slowly. Her eyes were red from crying. Carefully, they  
  
studied first one of her rescuers, then the other. At last, they settled on the men who'd been  
  
holding her captive. One dead and one unconscious.  
  
Jesse smiled as best he could. "You're safe now."  
  
"What's your name?" Charlotte asked, then on the heels of that question, "did you see or  
  
hear anything about a woman named Shalimar?"  
  
Choking down air, the woman pointed toward the dead bad guy. "That one, he said they  
  
were taking a woman to their base. I. . ." the woman had to pause to catch her breath, "I think  
  
he called her Shalimar. I didn't hear an address. But you've got to help her. That monster has  
  
her."  
  
"We will, don't worry. She's our friend. First we're going to get you someplace safe.  
  
What's your name?" Jesse asked, his blood running cold at her choice of words. 'The monster  
  
has her,' he thought as adrenaline pumped through his body, 'that sounds as far from good as  
  
you can go.'  
  
The woman looked from Charlotte to Jesse then back. Her expression was one of  
  
absolute seriousness. "My name is Katherine Bowden. Please, you've got to help that woman."  
  
She took a deep breath, then said emphatically, "that monster has her! Duncan Ladd has her!"  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
"This is your home?" Devon Bowden asked for the third time since Emma had let him  
  
regain consciousness. His hands were spread to encompass all of Sanctuary. A gleam of  
  
childlike awe in his eyes, a remarkably handsome smile on his lips, he seemed a completely  
  
different person now that he wasn't feeling obligated to kill anyone. Though desperately worried  
  
about his wife Katherine, the man's amazement was too powerful to ignore.  
  
A feeling of pride filled Emma as she walked toward the communications computer. It  
  
was nice being able to brag about Adam's accomplishment. Sanctuary deserved to be admired.  
  
The team took it for granted far too often.  
  
"Yes. This is home. Adam named it Sanctuary." She glanced back at him, wanting to  
  
make sure he was following. "Ever since I joined Mutant X, this is where I've lived."  
  
"It's astounding."  
  
Her smile grew. "So's the man who designed it."  
  
At first glance, the computer looked fine. Emma tapped at the controls and was rewarded  
  
by a diagnostic screen which said that everything was fine. If her comlink worked, she would  
  
have felt perfectly comfortable believing the machine. Under the current circumstances, a second  
  
opinion was needed. Namely her own.  
  
Feeling around beside the machine, she found a box of high-tech tools and a few  
  
replacement circuits. "With any luck, the problem will be simple and easy to solve." She started  
  
removing holding bolts and screws, loosening a heavy metal panel. Soon, the cover rested  
  
against one wall, revealing a dark corridor that was barely large enough to climb into.  
  
Emma entered, flashlight and tool kit in hand. Thick wire vines hung down and snaked  
  
across the floor. Dozens of encyclopedia sized circuits hummed with electric life. Thousands of  
  
larger machines were wired together all around her.  
  
"Of course, luck seems to be on vacation lately. First a future ruled by Eckhart, now this  
  
mess. If it weren't for Adam, I'd have gone crazy ages ago." Emma muttered to herself as she  
  
searched for any sign of malfunction in the communications computer. It seemed hopeless, since  
  
the machine was enormous and a short could be minuscule, but she stayed at it for a while,  
  
steadily ruling out possibilities.  
  
Outside the machine, Devon waited. He sat at a desk and thought about the decisions  
  
he'd made recently. How had he come so close to taking another's life? Despite training in  
  
detection and his time with the FBI, he'd never killed anyone. It had never been an issue. He  
  
was a profiler, but not a field agent. Virtually all the cases he'd handled as a private detective  
  
had been cheating spouses.  
  
His introduction to Duncan Ladd, the lethal servant of Aaron Sheckt, had been through a  
  
former client. Both he and Katherine had trusted him, despite an instinctive nervousness, because  
  
he was vouched for by that client. At first, everything had seemed simple and easy. Ladd asked  
  
him to investigate a theft. Devon went out, found nothing, and came home to find his home  
  
empty. Completely empty.  
  
Three days later, when he was on the verge of insanity, Duncan appeared and delivered  
  
Sheckt's ultimatum. That seemed like a lifetime ago. His mind was trying to forget, trying to  
  
gloss over the part where he almost murdered two innocent people and paralyzed a third.  
  
Devon rubbed his head. "I feel like I'm missing something."  
  
From deep inside the computer, Emma's voice came back to him. "Say what?"  
  
"Nothing. I've just got a strange feeling. Like there's a hole in my memory, something I  
  
should remember but can't." He closed his eyes and waited for her to tell him he was talking  
  
crazy. He needed her to say that. Normalcy was something he desperately needed.  
  
"It's possible Sheckt had a telepath work you over. Duncan Ladd might himself be one.  
  
Ever since I joined the team, I've been going through Adam's files. Not just the new mutant files,  
  
but ones on covert organizations and black book government operations, all kinds of nasty things.  
  
James Bond type stuff." As she spoke, the communications computer started making a funny  
  
noise, half whine and half grumble.  
  
Before Devon could do anything, sparks belched out of the machine. "Oops." Emma's  
  
voice grumbled. "Found the short. Jesse must have been really tired when he worked on this  
  
last. I think he crossed a few wires." There was a pause. Then, suddenly, the computer made  
  
a sound like a wounded kitten and went black. A thin swirl of smoke curled out from the  
  
access panel.  
  
"Are you okay?" Devon asked quietly.  
  
The computer hummed back to life, controls blinking gently. A large screen started  
  
displaying static, then a diagnostic program started. "Peachy. Especially now that everything's  
  
working again. At least, I think it is."  
  
Following her words, Emma herself came out of the machine. She wiped sweat from her  
  
brow and stretched. "Note to self, when this is all over, take a really long bath. And a nap. And  
  
a vacation." She sighed softly and turned toward Devon. "I'm a telempath. If something's been  
  
erased from your mind or if Sheckt's people put something in there, I might be able to do  
  
something about it. Trust me?"  
  
"Do I have a choice?"  
  
A strangely sad smile formed on her face. "You almost killed me. I kept Adam and  
  
Brennan from killing you. If you can't trust me now, you're either very stupid or way too  
  
paranoid." Emma reached out and took his hand. She sat across from him, locking eyes with  
  
him. "Look, I'm just trying to help, Okay? I want you to find your wife and live happily ever  
  
after. Sounds stupid, but that's just me. I like happy endings."  
  
She folded her hands on the desk. Watched him. "Devon, you can trust me. I'm one of  
  
the good guys."  
  
He nodded. "I know. I'm just having a little trouble with trust right now. Last person I  
  
trusted took my wife hostage and delivered an ultimatum from a mad man." Turning fully toward  
  
her, he placed his hands on the desk too. All of his focus was on Emma now. Her gaze seemed  
  
to pierce deep inside to his soul. For a full minute, he could feel the gentlest fingers probing his  
  
memories, searching for something hidden, something secret.  
  
Across the desk, Emma's eyes narrowed. She sensed it close, buried under thoughts and  
  
fears, in a dark place where no sane telepath would ever venture. Although she wasn't a  
  
telepath, her powers had expanded since she joined Mutant X. Emma could do things now  
  
that no ordinary Psionic could hope to.  
  
"I sense something. It's deep. Cold. Evil." She was getting close to it. Her mind could  
  
just barely feel the edges. Serrated. Jagged nightmares. "Very close now. Whoever did this  
  
wanted it to stay hidden." Closer now. Emma felt a dull ache in her skull, a sensation of terrible  
  
emptiness that was trying to draw her down into it's heart of darkness. "I see a face, I think. It's  
  
blurry, distant. Can't make it out."  
  
At the exact moment Emma thought she was about to reach the hidden memory in Devon's  
  
mind, her attention was diverted. For a second, she didn't know what had distracted her. She  
  
spun around and practically leapt from the chair. Time had passed, much more time than  
  
seemed possible.  
  
Strident beeping noises found their way into her ears. She glanced down at her comlink  
  
for a moment then raised it to her lips. "Adam? Who's there?"  
  
"Got it in one." Adam's melodious voice sent a wave of delicious warmth throughout  
  
every inch of Emma's body. Every word he spoke brought her fully back to alertness. "Brennan  
  
and I've found something. There's an abandoned military base on the north shore of Frost Lake.  
  
Except it's not quite abandoned any more. We've been scouting it for over an hour, trying the  
  
comlinks every fifteen minutes."  
  
"Sorry I didn't call the second I got them back online. There's something in Devon's  
  
head, a hidden memory. I think he's had more contact with Aaron Sheckt than he thinks. Or, if  
  
nothing else, whomever he has had contact with doesn't want anyone to know about it." Emma  
  
walked over the communications computer and checked the systems. Every relay appeared to  
  
be working properly. "Listen, Jesse and Shalimar aren't here. They took the Double Helix."  
  
Silence met her words. A sudden rush of static crawled out from the ring.  
  
Emma's heart beat faster, pulsed deeper. She knew, without a doubt, that something  
  
terrible had just happened. Since the first moment they'd made love in the dark future, there  
  
existed a connection between her and Adam. Now, through that bond, she knew that he was in  
  
trouble.  
  
"Adam! Brennan! Someone respond now!" The words tumbled out, so fast that they were  
  
almost a single word and breath. She started manipulating controls on the computer. "Can  
  
anyone hear me?"  
  
The signal gain was boosted. A satellite in low orbit rushed toward the area over Frost  
  
Lake for maximum possible strength of connection. In her heart, Emma knew that comlink  
  
wasn't the problem, but she wanted to be wrong. Wanted it more than anything else on Earth.  
  
Her fingers played across the controls again, using the newly enhanced G.P.S. to triangulate her  
  
teammate's positions.  
  
Even as the satellite took pictures from high above, a single came in through the  
  
communications computer. "Emma! We need backup! They've got Adam and I'm pinned  
  
down. Too many of them to fight! They're everywhere, just everywhere." It was Brennan's  
  
voice, desperate and just a little afraid. She could hear lightening sizzling in the background.  
  
"I'm coming Brennan! Hold them off as long as you can." Emma waited for a response.  
  
There was only silence.  
  
Empty and dead air.  
  
A hiss of lifeless static.  
  
"Come on." She turned toward the garage, heading for the car. A glance back over her  
  
shoulder showed that Devon was following. Despite everything, he wanted to be a good guy.  
  
Emma was glad, for she would need someone to watch her back if things were as bad as her  
  
instincts screamed they were.  
  
The weight of the silenced weapon tucked in her clothes was oddly comforting. Memories  
  
of future wars and death flooded her mind, but they yielded under her will. 'Focus on Adam,'  
  
she thought as she reached the car and climbed in. 'Focus on him, he's still alive. Save him now,  
  
breakdown later.'  
  
Emma waited only a few seconds for Devon to climb into the car too. She glanced at him  
  
and saw that he was calm, perhaps too calm. "No time for secrets."  
  
Without asking or even considering alternatives, Emma used every iota of her considerable  
  
telempathic power to learn everything she could about Devon Bowden. As she read the very  
  
essence of his soul, he was rigid in the seat, and in pain.  
  
When it was done, she erased all memory of her actions. "I can trust you."  
  
"Of course you can." Devon muttered, feeling strangely disoriented.  
  
"I know. I'm sorry I doubted you."  
  
He shook his head. "No reason to be sorry. You thought I was going to kill you. Hell, I  
  
thought I was going to kill you. But I couldn't. I just couldn't do it." His soft, dark eyes fell on  
  
her. His dark, handsome face wore a perfect expression of confusion. "Why are you trusting me  
  
anyway?"  
  
Emma didn't look at him as she drove. She didn't answer and, after a few moments of  
  
silence, he got the hint and turned away from her.  
  
As the car raced toward Frost Lake, first down the hidden cavern tunnel then out onto the  
  
secluded road, Emma mentally chastised herself for what she had just done. It had been a long  
  
time since she violated someone's mind in that manner. The act left her feeling dirty and guilty,  
  
yet thrilled and empowered. That side of her made Emma angry.  
  
However, her betrayal of her own principles wasn't the only thing that weighed on her  
  
mind. When she'd broken through Devon's defenses with her formidable mutant gifts, she'd  
  
also found the memory that had been buried. It was as she'd thought, a deeply repressed  
  
recollection, one that had been shoved down by a telepath of the highest order.  
  
Fortunately for Mutant X, no other Psionic could equal Emma DeLauro's power.  
  
Too bad she'd never told anyone that.  
  
On the road, she mulled over the face she'd seen in his mind; a hidden horror. The black  
  
and venomous spider prowling his web.  
  
She had seen the face of a monster, the face of a killer. The face of the one who'd truly  
  
ordered him to slay her and Brennan and to paralyze Adam. Emma had beheld their true enemy  
  
and it was not a man named Aaron Sheckt.  
  
It was a woman named Katherine Bowden.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
****************************END OF PART FOUR*************************** 


	5. Dark Designs

Part Five  
  
Dark Designs  
  
  
  
  
  
Awakening in a dark place, cool air and a thin sickly mist rolling across the floor, wasn't  
  
Brennan's idea of fun. Nor did he like the sight of the metal security door in front of him or the  
  
bars over the only window. A dull pain resonated from his spine, just above his broad shoulders.  
  
He reached back and felt alloyed steel and plastic. Rounded edges with sharp bits on back. It  
  
wasn't the first subdermal governor he'd had on him, but something about waking up to the damn  
  
thing made him angry.  
  
Groaning as he moved, Brennan rose to his knees, then to his feet. He swayed for a  
  
moment but quickly steadied himself. His head ached terribly. "Man, what hit me?"  
  
"Want the short version or the Letterman List?"  
  
From nearby shadows, someone had spoken. Turning toward that voice, a grin formed on  
  
Brennan's lips. "Adam? Good to see you're okay. Not so good to see you're stuck in here with  
  
me. I was hoping for a surprise rescue."  
  
A wry smile on his face, Adam stepped closer, entering the cell's meager light. He moved  
  
slowly, favoring the right side of his body. Dry blood stained his right pant's leg in a disturbingly  
  
large swath. Seeing his friend and teammate's eyes go wide with concern, Adam shook his head.  
  
"It's not as bad as it looks. I'm going to limp for a while, but I'll heal."  
  
"Good to hear." Brennan said as he turned his eyes back toward the only visible door.  
  
"Have they been around since we got snatched? The last thing I remember, goons with guns were  
  
kicking our butts." He rubbed at the side of his head as he spoke, grimacing slightly at the dull,  
  
resonating pain. It might have been new or it might have been a recurrence from his earlier  
  
injuries. Either way, Brennan felt awful.  
  
A sardonic tone came to Adam's expression. "Our hosts," the older man said as he  
  
stumbled closer, "haven't bothered to ask if we liked the accommodations, no." He snorted.  
  
"Maybe someone hung a 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the door."  
  
"Yeah. Probably."  
  
Adam shook his head. "Sheckt's people did a damn good job catching us. Their tactics  
  
were perfect, as if they were expecting us. Maybe the bastard has a Psionic on the payroll, not  
  
much else makes sense." He staggered toward the nearest wall and leaned against it, taking a  
  
deep breath as he did. "Can't decide if my leg was an accident or someone's idea of a funny  
  
joke." Another snort and a raised eyebrow. "Considering how vicious these bastards are, I'm  
  
leaning toward joke."  
  
"Ha, ha. Tell me another one."  
  
"I can't get your governor off. Not without some kind of tools."  
  
"Really big ha, ha."  
  
"Brennan, I'm serious."  
  
He grinned, "I thought you were Adam."  
  
With a deep sigh, Adam pushed himself away from the wall. "Get serious. We're in deep  
  
here. They took our comlinks, you've got a subdermal governor, and we have no idea if they're  
  
going to keep us alive long enough for the others to rescue us." He paused, the color suddenly  
  
leaving his face. "Oh no. Emma."  
  
"Yeah. We called her." Brennan closed his eyes, wincing as pain filled his body. Reeling  
  
sideways, he almost hit the floor before Adam caught him.  
  
"Here. Rest, try not to move." Gently, he set the younger man down, careful to keep his  
  
head steady. Concern ruled his features. With practiced movements, he drew back Brennan's  
  
eyelid and watched the pupil. "I think you might have a mild concussion. Just sit here and wait.  
  
That's all we can do now. Emma's probably already on her way. She's smart. She won't let them  
  
catch her off guard and even if they did, she's tough. She'll be okay. She will."  
  
Brennan chuckled, though it sounded much like a stuttering gasp. "I guess I know where  
  
I stand on your list of concerns." He waved away Adam's beginning of a response. "Don't. It's  
  
cool. You should be worried about her. You do love her, right?"  
  
"More than I ever thought possible."  
  
A smile formed on Brennan's face. "I wasn't sure I believed you before. Now, I know I  
  
do. You and Emma." He laughed, his chest jerking in pain, face turning paler. For a few  
  
moments, he said nothing. When color came back, along with strength, he sat up straighter and  
  
smirked. "Saw it coming. Believe it or not, I saw it coming. When she didn't go for Jesse or me,  
  
I knew. She'd go for you." He reached up, hand fumbling around, before finding his right temple.  
  
"My head really hurts."  
  
"You're going to be okay. We've just got to wait for help to come. She will come for us  
  
Brennan. Emma won't let us die here. Together, we've gotten out a lot worse situations than this,  
  
right?"  
  
"Yeah. Right."  
  
Adam tried to smile bravely. "Could you try saying that with at least a little hope, my  
  
friend? We've done the impossible before. What's one more time?"  
  
From behind them came the sound of metal scraping ponderously across metal. Adam  
  
turned around, his eyes falling on four men standing loosely grouped together like a pack of lethal  
  
wolves. Each held a large caliber machine gun and was dressed in a uniform, the cut much like  
  
army surplus.  
  
At the center of the pack was a man. He smiled coldly. "Under any other circumstances,  
  
I'd appreciate such talent for escaping unpleasant situations. Unfortunately, Mr. Kane, I am very  
  
much displeased by your team's performance so far. I was expecting much more of a challenge."  
  
The man came into the cell, flanked by his guards. Behind them, two more men carried an  
  
unconscious blonde woman. Without preamble, they heaved her into the cell, where she rolled  
  
slightly before laying face up.  
  
"Shalimar!" Brennan gasped and nearly got himself killed when he leaped forward to  
  
make sure she was alright. Only the man who'd spoken, the seeming leader of these wolves,  
  
prevented the tragedy by giving a simple hand gesture. That gesture kept hair triggers untouched,  
  
death sheathed. It was easy to believe that an equally uncomplicated motion would have resulted  
  
in bloodshed.  
  
On the floor, Shalimar was breathing, but she was beaten and bloody. Streaks of  
  
darkening crimson stained everything. Her clothes were torn slightly, which nearly prompted  
  
Brennan to a suicidal impulse before he realized the damage was superficial, probably the result of  
  
being dragged around. He carefully examined her for any injuries invisible to nature's optical  
  
prototype, the Mark I Eyeball. No broken bones that he could feel, no signs of internal bleeding,  
  
although there were terrible bruises already forming. There didn't seem to be any permanent  
  
damage, not even simple scarring. Still, as his finger gently touched her face, Brennan felt a wave  
  
of homicidal rage. Though she was alive, Shalimar had been tortured and nearly killed.  
  
Tears temporarily blurred his vision as he set his hate-filled gaze on the man. "Why? Who  
  
the hell are you people? Why are doing this? What the hell do you want?" Brennan asked, his  
  
fury barely in check. He would have risen and grabbed the man's shirt collar, or maybe just  
  
strangled him, if not for the guards that kept their guns trained on him.  
  
For his part, the man simply shrugged. "Though it might be a cliched answer, I have to  
  
say it." He dispassionately smiled, the countenance one of absolute unfeeling evil. His eyes met  
  
Brennan's and then twitched to Adam, who's hands were clenched into fists at his side. He  
  
turned, walking back toward the one door out. Just before he reached the threshold of the cell,  
  
five chilling words were carried over his shoulder, as disturbing in their message as their delivery  
  
in an emotionless discourse. "I was just following orders."  
  
Pack leader and his loyal guards started to leave.  
  
"Wait! Are you Sheckt?" Adam called out, stepping forward.  
  
Before he could get an answer, two of the bodyguards were slamming their rifle butt's  
  
into his stomach and face. He went down hard, so much of his weight falling on his injured leg  
  
that he cried out through clenched teeth. Brennan didn't leave Shalimar's side to help, because  
  
another guard had swung a rifle into his head. He lay beside his friend, teammate, and lovely  
  
companion, just as unconscious.  
  
Adam coughed and tasted blood. Hurt came from everywhere at once, tearing and  
  
groping his sanity. He shoved himself up on one arm, tried to show some defiance. Out of the  
  
corner of his eye, he saw a guard check Brennan for a pulse.  
  
If the younger man lived through all of his head trauma without some kind of lasting  
  
damage, it would be a miracle.  
  
Maybe it already was.  
  
Groaning, Adam tried to turn onto his side, desperately hoping to make some attempt to  
  
stop what was happening. He was their leader, their friend. "Leave them alone." He hissed  
  
through teeth clenched and wet with blood. Immediately, someone came forward and kicked him  
  
in the face, loosening a few of his teeth. Another guard slammed his rifle down on his wounded  
  
leg, prompting another gasping cry. He tried to strike back at his attackers, but they pummeled  
  
him with blows. Rifle stocks rained down along with metal toed boots to the spine and guts. As  
  
Adam gathered himself into the fetal position, a loud click filled the room. A guard pointed his  
  
rifle at arguably the world's greatest brain.  
  
Expecting to die, Adam chose to remember Emma's beautiful face as his last memory.  
  
He wished they'd had more time.  
  
"Stop." The cold command froze the kill shot. Having spoken, the guarded man turned  
  
back to Adam, watched him spit blood. With deathly cold eyes, he glared down. "My master  
  
isn't here yet. I am just a servant, a messenger." A gesture sent his bodyguards filing out of the  
  
cell ahead of him.  
  
Before following them, the man returned to Adam's side and knelt down. He grasped one  
  
of his prisoner's ears and violently twisted, bringing a scream of pain. "My name is Duncan Ladd.  
  
And that, my dear Mr. Kane, was the message."  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
As Katherine left the garage and entered Sanctuary proper, she found herself stopping in  
  
mid step, awed into stunned shock. "Wow," she said as Jesse and Charlotte followed her inside,  
  
"this place is amazing. Do you really live here?"  
  
"Sometimes I ask myself the very same question." Jesse said with a slight smile. He  
  
walked over to a table and drew two wheeled chairs. "You two lovely ladies sit while I try to get  
  
a hold of someone. Hopefully, whatever's glitching in the system, my superior brain will be able to  
  
figure it out." A weak grin took hold of his face. "Put your trust in me, I've got an honest face."  
  
"You're pretty cheery for a guy who's entire team seems to be missing." Charlotte said  
  
quietly as she sat down.  
  
Jesse turned back to her. "Brennan's first rule of dealing with a bad situation is to keep  
  
your sense of humor. You'll need it." He turned back to the communications computer and  
  
started to remove the side panel. Guilt made his stomach cringe. Before they'd left to save  
  
Charlotte, he and Shalimar had heard the system give forth a horrible sound. Later, they'd been  
  
unable to contact anyone with their comlinks. On the way to Sanctuary, Jesse was certain his ring  
  
had made a sound, as if trying to give him a signal, but it hadn't lasted more than a second.  
  
Though he could not be sure, he had a terrible suspicion that he was to blame for the  
  
problem. Ever since Adam and Emma returned from the future, ever since she gave him  
  
Charlotte's book, he'd been spending hours reading. Hours that broke into scheduled  
  
maintenance and stole away sleep.  
  
Every word of the book Hope, every nuance, kept him rapt because of it's message. The  
  
story of falling down into despair only to rise and work to make amends. Now that Jesse knew  
  
who had written it, he was surprised by the courage she'd displayed in putting her pain into  
  
words. The last chapters were so brutally honest, so bitingly self-deprecating, that Jesse could  
  
scarcely reconcile his early ideal of Charlotte Cooke with the woman who'd written this book.  
  
He glanced over his shoulder, his gaze falling on her as she sat quietly beside Katherine.  
  
She was still the same dark-haired and dark-eyed young woman who'd once struck out against  
  
him and Mutant X. She wore the same sort of clothes as before, down to the open faux fur coat  
  
she'd taken from her bags. The way she spoke with a dark warmth and moved with an  
  
unconscious slink remained mirrored to memory. When he stole a glimpse of her, her soft smile  
  
still held a trace of both sadness and seduction.  
  
And she was still attractive.  
  
Very attractive, actually.  
  
The way she walked and talked, that feisty wildcat side of her personality, it put him in  
  
mind of a less serious, more fun loving version of Shalimar. The slinky-sexy-seductive aura was  
  
especially similar. She gave that off in megawatt doses. Even now, having faced a horrifying  
  
tragedy, when their eyes met, there was a come hither quality to her gaze that left him feeling  
  
somewhat breathless.  
  
Charlotte's lips twitched up into a one-sided smile, as if silently asking if it were really  
  
okay to be happy after what had happened. The question was plain in her eyes. She wanted an  
  
answer, needed one, from him.  
  
For the time being, Jesse just nodded toward her. He didn't have any answers. He was  
  
too busy trying not to think about all the things that had gone wrong since the morning. His  
  
attentions on the computer, he had an image of Charlotte's face when she caught him watching  
  
her. 'How long was I staring,' Jesse wondered as he removed the access panel and stuck his  
  
head inside the jungle of wiring and cooling pipes. 'Probably a lot longer than I should have been.'  
  
He poked around inside the machine. A few circuits seemed burned. Several wires were  
  
disconnected. A stench of ozone permeated the stagnant air.  
  
A blush colored his cheeks. His negligence was to blame for some of the problems. There  
  
were shorts everywhere. Yet, the main system had obviously been repaired, albeit in a somewhat  
  
slipshod and perfunctory manner. It would hold for a while but not forever.  
  
As he backed out of the machine, someone tapped his shoulder. Turning, he found  
  
Charlotte, her softly brown eyes focused on him. Her face, very close to his. "So, what's the  
  
problem? Why can't you call anyone on that all-in-one ring of yours?" Leaning against the side of  
  
the computer, she might have smiled, but the expression was very faint. "It is just a problem with  
  
this machine, right?"  
  
Jesse was touched by the worry in her voice, since it could only have been for the missing  
  
members of Mutant X. "Actually, it looks like whatever was wrong, someone fixed it. Probably  
  
Emma, since I taught her how a while back." He grabbed the heavy metal access panel he'd  
  
removed to gain access to the computer's innards and quickly replaced it. "Or, at least, she fixed  
  
most of it. Some of our systems are still down."  
  
"Well, then, we've got to get them back up. Sooner we find out what happened to the  
  
others and where everyone is, the better. If that psycho Ladd has Shalimar. . . well, I don't really  
  
know what that means, but it won't be good for her." Charlotte ran a hand through her long,  
  
brunette locks. "Just thinking about him and his partner, what they did. . . what they almost did, it  
  
makes me feel cold."  
  
Jesse touched her face. The impulsive act was as much a surprise from him as it was for  
  
her. "You're safe now. And we're going to find the others."  
  
She met his eyes. "Really?"  
  
"Yeah. Trust me."  
  
Charlotte's eyes glimmered in the light of Sanctuary. They bore into Jesse, seemingly  
  
touching his soul. Suddenly, she started talking. "You said it was a long story, that you'd tell me  
  
everything when we got here. Quoting my book, calling me wildcat. . . Jesse, how did you know  
  
things about me I never told anyone. Ever." As she spoke, Charlotte gently grasped his arm.  
  
"You want me to trust you, I need to know." Desperation and longing were in her eyes.  
  
The only answer Jesse gave was to reach into his pocket and draw out a single sheet of  
  
folded paper. He held it out. After staring at it curiously, she took it. The edges were worn  
  
rough, she wondered how many times his stare had passed over this document. How many times  
  
had he read it's words, whatever they were?  
  
In silence, she unfolded the paper one more time. Her eyes immediately went wide. They  
  
rose to meet Jesse's own.  
  
"This is my handwriting. What the hell is this?"  
  
He let out a slow sigh. "Two weeks ago, Adam and Emma were sent into the future. I  
  
know that sound's insane," as he spoke these words emphatically, he reached out and seized her  
  
arm, "but you have to believe it's the truth. That's where I got the letter from." Releasing  
  
Charlotte's arm, he drew a steading breath. "Emma brought it back. You. . . well, the future you,  
  
gave her the book Hope. Hidden in the book was that letter. Your letter." Again, he met her eyes  
  
and something powerful passed between them.  
  
It was a deeply Dickensesque sensation, as if they were sensing the shadows of things that  
  
might have been, though without a shadowy spirit's help. For one brief instant, each saw the  
  
other with haunted eyes and the faintest signs of aging. Thirty years of desperate battles for  
  
survival, yet time had left barely a mark upon them.  
  
The vision lasted no more than a second. When it passed, the letter was once more the  
  
object of Charlotte's attention. First, she read the words in stunned silence. Then, as if to force  
  
herself into believing that the letter's contents were real, she spoke them aloud.  
  
"Dear Jesse," she glanced at him for a moment before returning to the words, "I know  
  
that, ever since your father's betrayal, you've felt alone and useless. At night, you spend long  
  
hours wishing for a purpose, praying for reason. It's why you joined Mutant X. But a purpose in  
  
duty isn't enough. I know you wish for something to live for, Jesse."  
  
Charlotte drew a deep breath. She knew the script was her own, but what now came in  
  
the letter far exceeded that simple revelation. "I was your purpose and you were mine. We found  
  
each other in the darkness, in this world of might have been. We completed each other's souls."  
  
Another breath. "I know that, when the machine is ready, Adam and Emma will go back  
  
and all that I have known for the past thirty years will cease to exist." She waited for a heartbeat,  
  
wanting Jesse to say something, anything, but he was silent. Her mind swirled with questions, ten  
  
thousand and more. Only the words before her might yield answers, yet the letter frightened her.  
  
It wasn't meant for this world and what it spoke of was yet to be real. "I guess I'm selfish. I'm  
  
spending what seem like the last moments of my life writing this letter. I don't want us to have  
  
never happened. You were always the only man who ever made me feel like I mattered. And that  
  
I was loved."  
  
A tear slide down Charlotte's cheek. Though she'd never admit it, the words of the  
  
woman who might have been affected her deeply. By what she was reading, this future self would  
  
never be. Her heart ached for the woman that existed only now in her hands, in a final message to  
  
a past that was this Charlotte's present. What had she felt thirty years forward as she wrote?  
  
Fear? Resignation? Or some sense of hope that the joys of her life might be repeated if this letter  
  
was read and taken to heart?  
  
"I don't know if this letter will change anything. Thirty years ago, the only contact we'd  
  
had was purely adversarial. Although, I did think you were very sexy." She laughed, pressing her  
  
free hand to her mouth as the mirth nearly turned to despondency. "Look me up. In the darkness,  
  
you were my light. Maybe I could be yours again. No fate but what we make, right?"  
  
The very last part of the letter came as she folded it back and held it out to Jesse. "Yours  
  
in time, your wildcat Charlotte."  
  
Without a word, Jesse slipped the letter into his pocket. "That's what I read two weeks  
  
ago. When you called, I knew I had to save you, no matter the cost. I'm not sure if we could  
  
have any kind of relationship in this time. Maybe it would be crazy to even try." He sighed and  
  
shook his head. "Yeah, crazy's the right word. The letter, the dark future, all of it's insane. But  
  
no matter how nuts my life is, I know one thing for certain."  
  
"What?" Charlotte asked quietly.  
  
Jesse reached out and took her hands in his. "I want to know you." He paused. "This  
  
must all seem strange to you, huh?"  
  
She sighed. "Yeah, it is pretty weird. Kinda cool though." The tone of Charlotte's voice  
  
held equal parts longing and uncertainty. Ever since they first met, she'd thought about Jesse.  
  
Now, this discovery of a future spent together, it spun her world upside down for the second time  
  
in less than twenty-four hours. She wasn't sure she could take another surprise.  
  
"I'm sorry to bother the two of you, but I need to tell you something."  
  
At the sound of Katherine's voice, they turned to look at her.  
  
Jesse smiled.  
  
Without warning, Katherine Bowden launched a spin kick. Driving her flat heeled shoe  
  
into his stomach, she grabbed Jesse's shoulders and vaulted over him like a champion gymnast,  
  
twisting to face his back. Moving almost faster than the eye could follow, she reached into an  
  
ankle holster and drew a subdermal governor implanting device. It thrummed to life easily.  
  
The snap of the machine unfroze Charlotte. She turned toward the control console for the  
  
communications computer, desperately trying to send an emergency signal.  
  
Before she could do anything, something sharp stabbed into her neck and sent a current of  
  
pain throughout her spine. Charlotte yelped and tried to turn. She wanted to strike her attacker,  
  
fight fast before it was too late.  
  
The torment came instantly. No defense was possible when your blood was on fire.  
  
Agony exploded within her, a dark blazing inferno splashed with electric gasoline. Slavery in  
  
suffering. Domination on demand. How could anyone fight against what had once been the  
  
weapon of choice for the GSA? The answer was simple, a cold equation in the devil's arithmetic.   
  
Subdermal governor, plus mutant, equals victory every time. She had no chance once that vile  
  
metal predator penetrated the tender flesh of her neck and spent it's unholy barbs in her tender  
  
spinal cord.  
  
Charlotte gasped when the pain ended. Her nerves were misfiring, causing sudden jerking  
  
spasms. Her pulse had become arrhythmic briefly. If Katherine had kept it up for only a second  
  
longer, she would have had a heart attack. Instead, she got to enjoy the floor.  
  
Towering over, barely visible, Katherine Bowden used Mutant X's communications  
  
system. Oblivion was creeping closer, drawing Charlotte's vision into a narrow tunnel, now a tiny  
  
circle, but voices followed her as she drifted toward a silent darkness.  
  
"Bowden reporting, I've captured the Cooke woman and Mr. Kilmartin. Requesting a  
  
transport at the following coordinates."  
  
She typed something, then turned and stared down at Charlotte.  
  
"Nothing personal."  
  
Cold laughter followed Charlotte into unconsciousness.  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
Gabriel Ashlocke lounged in repose. For the first time since awaking from his unwelcome  
  
slumber, he felt truly at peace. His naked flesh glistened with the fresh sweat of exertion. Kelly's  
  
body was draped over his chest, one hand stretched up, her fingers curled in his long ebony hair.  
  
He could feel her heart beating contentedly, a rhythmic pulse feeding an unquenchable hunger for  
  
adoration and reverence. She was breathing even, sweet fairy sighs, sleeping the sleep of the truly  
  
innocent. As usual, Gabriel had exhausted his favorite. The moment felt perfect.  
  
Far and wide, the members of the Strand were out searching for new recruits. He had  
  
ordered them to do so upon returning to his museum base. Being good little sycophants, they'd  
  
obeyed without hesitation. By morning, he expected to have nearly doubled the size of his forces,  
  
a necessity given the half formed plans of revenge that swirled within his all-knowing skull. So  
  
much insolence needed payback.  
  
Gabriel rose reluctantly from the nest of pillows that had surrounded and concentrated his  
  
sexual indulgence of mere moments ago. Naked, he walked to a large wardrobe, an antique  
  
affair that predated Columbus. Though a god, Gabriel still felt chilled by the drafts that whispered  
  
through the building, thus he cloaked himself in a robe of an imperious royal hue. The day was  
  
just beginning to wan outside. Afternoon had given way to early evening.  
  
His stomach grumbled. He hadn't eaten for some time.  
  
Not food anyway.  
  
A twinge in his chest made him grunt slightly, vague grimace clouding his countenance.  
  
"Must have pulled a muscle." He muttered, glancing back at Kelly, who shivered now that she  
  
was alone on the pillows. "Worth it though."  
  
Gabriel passed through an open doorway, leaving his bedroom for the wide and dimly lit  
  
corridors of the museum. All along the hall hung priceless works of art left behind when the  
  
museum was abandoned; pieces of sculpture stood sentinel on all sides. His eyes drifted from  
  
one piece of antiquity to another. Each item was superb. He'd learned their pedigrees and could  
  
recite them chapter and verse.  
  
It pleased him to know things that others didn't. Gods were supposed to be omnipotent  
  
after all and he was a divine being. Their value also pleased him. Every one was his, and through  
  
them, financial power.  
  
"Erh!" Gabriel gritted his teeth so hard that he tasted blood. Pain flooded his chest for  
  
just a second, then ceased completely. It left him feeling weak. He stumbled for a few steps,  
  
then regained his usual self-assured swagger. "Damn Kelly. Whatever muscle I pulled, it's her  
  
fault for being so flexible."  
  
He chuckled at that for a moment.  
  
An office had been converted into a kitchen months ago by his followers. Gabriel walked  
  
in, stretching tentatively. His stomach felt hollow, bottomless. He made himself a sandwich.  
  
Before he took the first bite, a fit of laughter overcame him.  
  
"What an image. Gabriel Ashlocke, god among insects, making himself a sandwich. Don't  
  
I have people who do this sort of thing for me?" He shook his head and ran his fingers through  
  
his long hair. "Maybe I should wake Kelly up. Let her enshrine this thing."  
  
Still smiling, he ate until not even a single crumb remained. Unsatisfied, he raided the  
  
supply cupboard and devoured someone's store of chocolate bars and peanut butter cups. He  
  
flipped on a monitor set across from him on a card table before plopping down in a folding chair  
  
with a box of cereal in hand. Munching contentedly, Gabriel passed from channel to channel  
  
before settling on a news program.  
  
The woman on the screen looked far too young to be a highschool senior, let alone a  
  
national news anchor. "Good evening. I'm Eve Frost with your evening news." Regardless, she  
  
seemed competent, speaking of tragedy and terror with a disturbingly pleasant demeanor. Her  
  
hair was neck length, sweet wheat colored yet streaked naturally with a darker auburn; wisps  
  
curled forward toward her slight chin. In her chocolate eyes, Gabriel could see a singleness of  
  
vision and drive, tempered with a certain moral ambiguity and apathy. She seemed focused on  
  
him as he snacked.  
  
"I see why they hired her," he said around a mouthful. "The lady could get a dead man's  
  
motor running." He glanced out into the hallway. "Hm. Maybe I will wake Kelly. Another round  
  
might be fun."  
  
First, Gabriel decided to watch Eve's news report. It would help get him in the mood.  
  
She seemed to be looking into his eyes as she spoke. "Law enforcement sources are  
  
calling today's attacks acts of domestic terrorism. A warehouse belonging to Dr. David Clark  
  
was burned down early this morning. Witnesses claim to have seen two jets leave the area, but no  
  
one can confirm." Her face vanished as footage from the site appeared. Fire raged high into the  
  
air, like the devil's fingers beckoning all downward. Eve's voice came through the speakers,  
  
clear and honeyed. "Remarkably, no one was hurt in this stunning display of carnage.  
  
Unfortunately, that cannot be said of what followed only a few hours later."  
  
An image of Clark's mansion, or the ruins of it, filled the screen as large as life. "This was  
  
once a stunningly beautiful estate, home to Dr. Clark and his daughter Tiffany. More than a dozen  
  
people died here. Among them, Tiffany Clark, whose remains were identified only with the help of  
  
the latest DNA analysis software from Syria Systems Supply. Also killed were numerous private  
  
security guards, hired that very day to protect Dr. Clark and his family. Only two of the guards  
  
survived. Lenny Franks and Thadeus Owens were barely alive when police found them, trapped  
  
inside the charred remains of their mobile headquarters. Viewers may remember Franks from our  
  
coverage of a July incident in Tel Aviv. Both men are expected to recover."  
  
Eve reappeared on the screen. Her brown eyes glimmered in the overhead studio lights  
  
and her face seemed to glow warmly, lending an ironically angelic sense to an otherwise gruesome  
  
broadcast. "Dr. Clark is said to have had ties to numerous Neo-Nazi organizations and was  
  
rumored to have played a part in a recent terrorist plot involving a genetically engineered toxin. It  
  
was believed that. . ." The woman's voice trailed off as someone came on screen from the side,  
  
handing her several sheets of paper.  
  
After glancing over them, and sharing a few words with the man before he left, she turned  
  
back to the cameras. "I'm sorry for that delay, but we've just received news that the body of Dr.  
  
David Clark has been identified at Jacob's Memorial hospital. Apparently he died there several  
  
hours ago. Though a security guard was unable to recall his arrival, a receptionist claims to have  
  
seen Clark arrive in the company of an as yet unidentified man."  
  
Gabriel started to smile, recalling the doctor fondly for curing him, but he ended up  
  
choking on a handful of cereal. As he coughed, he stared at the screen. A grainy image in black  
  
and white was sharing space with Eve Frost's lovely face. Though inferior in quality, the film was  
  
clear enough to identify the man calmly leaving the hospital.  
  
Under any other circumstances, Gabriel would have been more than pleased to share space  
  
with such an attractive woman.  
  
"This is footage of the unidentified male as he left the building. Sources inside Jacob's  
  
Memorial have stated that there was evidence of several drugs being combined and they have  
  
asked that the man turn himself in immediately for evaluation, as several of the chemicals in  
  
question were poisonous."  
  
Gabriel pressed a hand to his chest. "Poison? No, that's not possible!" He rose from his  
  
chair so quickly it toppled backward. The sound reverberated throughout the museum, the echo  
  
carrying all the way to his bedroom and Kelly's ear. He didn't care.  
  
Suddenly, it all made sense.  
  
Clark had played him. He'd pretended to be upset at what he was doing. Maybe he  
  
believed that once restored, even temporarily, that his enemy would rid himself of the poison.  
  
Even now, something black oozed through Gabriel's blood, killing him while making him feel  
  
good, designer drugs burning all to ash. Pain started to form, an opera of agony building to a  
  
stunning crescendo. . . the death of a god. Gabriel felt dizzy with fear and revelation. How could  
  
he have been so blind?  
  
Unlike the first two times, this sudden explosion of torment held nothing back. It clutched  
  
his heart and squeezed so hard, he knew in an instant that Dr. David Clark was going to have the  
  
last laugh, watching from hell with his daughter in his arms.  
  
Gabriel's legs buckled beneath him.  
  
The floor met his body with a powerful thwack.  
  
Eyes squinting, breath coming in quick gasps, he could not move.  
  
He tried desperately to force his body to heal itself. His cells did not respond. Gabriel  
  
could feel a strange icy sensation spreading throughout his entire body, beginning with his toes  
  
and finger tips. Aware of his body's every function, he knew that death was coming. A natural  
  
survival mechanism was sending blood to his brain to slow the seemingly inevitable.  
  
In a burst of strength, Gabriel managed to stand up. His entire left side was numb, that leg  
  
almost useless, but he still stood. Arrogance had vanished with the pain. Blinded with insight, he  
  
knew that his only hope was to reach the medical lab Harrison had set up long ago.  
  
He managed only a single step before collapsing, one arm stretched toward the doorway.  
  
One step closer to hell, though he'd never before thought himself food for infernal flames. Death  
  
neared. With it came insight.  
  
He was damned. A dark soul. Nothing but a pretender to power. "Help me," he  
  
whispered desperately, raising his right shaking hand, reaching for the thing he'd never given.  
  
"Help me."  
  
When Kelly came into the kitchen wearing a white nightgown, kneeling down and taking  
  
his hand in hers, he thought for a moment that she was an angel. Gabriel wept at the sight of her.  
  
Pain brought even more tears. "Clark." He groaned, the effort to speak taking more than he  
  
could imagine. "Poison."  
  
Kelly had tears in her eyes too. Even she could tell it was hopeless. Still, she knew that  
  
wasn't what he wanted to hear. "Don't worry, it will be alright. I promise." The lie was sweet.  
  
Honey on wounds that could not be sealed.  
  
Then, suddenly, the lie became truth.  
  
Men and women appeared, seemingly from nowhere. Kelly screamed and raised her  
  
hands, obviously intending to make a wall of flames to protect her master. One of the women  
  
held a rifle. The weapon made an odd popping sound. Gabriel saw a small dart with a bit of red  
  
fluff on one end embed itself in Kelly's arm. She lost consciousness instantly.  
  
A man caught her just before she hit the floor. "This one's going to be out for a while.  
  
She'll have a hell of a headache but she'll live."  
  
"What about Ashlocke?" The question came from a familiar man in a white lab coat. He  
  
was the mysterious informer who'd given Gabriel the letter with Dr. Clark's address and a double  
  
helix symbol made from two S's. Now, he stood over him, scratching his chin beard. His bulging  
  
toad eyes fixed on the fallen god and his twisted angel.  
  
Clipped to his lab coat was a new piece to the puzzle. An identification security card,  
  
inscribed with the name KING, JAMES R. Gabriel read it just before his vision failed.  
  
"Can't be sure. Look's like that reporter had her story straight." This came from the  
  
woman who'd shot Kelly. She was kneeling beside him, checking his pulse. Her skin was dusky  
  
yet faint; her hair was jet black and flowed around her face like the wings of a soul ferrying  
  
sparrow. "Clark must have administered a cocktail with some sort of time release element. Too  
  
bad he's not around to tell us how he did it. He was a damn good scientist. Loco, but brilliant."  
  
The Latina doctor gave Gabriel a shot of bluish green ooze. "This should stabilize him  
  
until we can reach our base. Tell Mr. Darroch to teleport us back."  
  
"Right." The mysterious James King put a cell phone to his ear and spoke a few words  
  
Gabriel couldn't follow. An instant later, he felt as if he were being yanked upward. He closed  
  
his eyes for a heartbeat and opened them not on the familiar museum but seemingly on another  
  
world. Machines were everywhere. Dozens of people were walking about with clipboards, file  
  
folders and all manner of sundry lab equipment.  
  
"Dr. Guevara, please take Mr. Ashlocke to a recovery room. I'll make sure the higher ups  
  
don't get curious. McCandless has been breathing down my neck ever since I started handing  
  
R&D my 'discoveries.' If he comes down here, tell him those rooms are off limits. If he insists on  
  
taking a peek, kill him."  
  
"Sir, what about this woman?" The man carrying Kelly asked. "Should we put her in  
  
recovery too or give her to analysis?"  
  
Gabriel gave his best shot trying to ask them to leave his favorite alone, but he could only  
  
gurgle out a load of gibberish. Regardless, Mr. King smiled. "It would seem Mr. Ashlocke  
  
wants her spared. Put her in Iso-Lab Four. I want subdermal governor's on both of them. And  
  
Guevara, make sure he lives. Our leader thinks he's important. She wants him happy."  
  
"Whatever." Dr. Guevara said with a shrug. "As long as I get paid, my day's bright and  
  
shiny." Gesturing for some of the men to help her move Gabriel, she turned down a hallway,  
  
leading the way to a nearby treatment area. She looked down at her special charge as he  
  
watched others taking Kelly away.  
  
"Don't worry about your bed bunny. We'll take fine care of her."  
  
Helpless, dying, the situation struck him as perfectly appropriate. He was once again at  
  
the mercy of ordinary humans.  
  
He hoped these people wouldn't stuff him back in a pod.  
  
He hoped.  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
Emma hoped she was wrong about Katherine. Ever since she'd broken into Devon's mind  
  
and found the image of his own wife commanding him to go out and kill, her thoughts had been  
  
desperate attempts to find fault with the vision. She wasn't infallible. Unlike a true telepath, a  
  
telempath more often picked up on visual representations of feelings rather than real events.  
  
Though she'd never mistaken one for the other before, Emma couldn't shake an instinctive feeling  
  
that there was more to this ever spiraling situation than she knew.  
  
Beside her, Devon was oblivious to her inner unrest, lost as he was in his own. He stared  
  
out the window beside him blankly, watching as great clusters of trees blurred into a single line of  
  
verdancy. Ahead, looming high in his thoughts, Frost Lake. It was all coming to an end. Every  
  
action in his life had been mere preparation for this day.  
  
A strange calm had descended on him some time ago. His nerves were still now.  
  
Truthfully, he wasn't expecting to live to see tomorrow. There were no illusions. The battle  
  
ahead would not be easy. Devon had never killed before, but he knew that today that would  
  
change. Part of him still wasn't certain he'd done the right thing, risking his wife's life for three  
  
strangers.  
  
Yet, all he had to do was turn his head and look at Emma to know that no matter the  
  
cost, he never could have murdered anyone.  
  
Somehow, that thought wasn't comforting. Katherine could be dead right now, he didn't  
  
know. He'd failed her by not killing. He'd failed her by letting Emma live, by telling Brennan and  
  
Adam where to find Duncan Ladd and by helping now to stop Sheckt. It was horrifying to think  
  
that she might be dead because he was a good person.  
  
Driving slower now as the car passed from a desolate stretch of highway to an old paved  
  
road, Emma was plagued by a sense of impending doom. She was missing a critical piece in the  
  
bizarre puzzle: the motive behind Sheckt's attack. Hidden from her, destructive and inevitable,  
  
this last fragment of the mystery was all too likely to be the last issue resolved. When the final  
  
piece was in place, it would end. An image popped into her head, an old urban legend she'd  
  
learned as a child. She saw herself completing a jigsaw puzzle. At the end, the image that stared  
  
up at her was of herself completing the puzzle, a wild-eyed killer behind her.  
  
The image made her shudder. The closer they came to Frost Lake, the more a dark feeling  
  
of abysmal emptiness nettled the edges of her mind. She sensed a collection of dark souls ahead.  
  
If she closed her eyes and concentrated, their self-indulgent desires and sick needs would have  
  
flooded her mind.  
  
She wished she could kill them all.  
  
Her connection with Adam grew as well with every millimeter lost between them. From  
  
his mind radiated pain, fear, and a deep longing. He wanted the woman he loved most in all the  
  
world. She wanted to reach out and let him know she was near, but instinct warned her to hold  
  
back all psionic scans. Something wasn't right.  
  
Emma glanced sideways at Devon, caught him glancing at her. He looked away, an  
  
embarrassed twist to his mouth. She sighed softly. Turning the wheel to bring the car onto a  
  
dusky dirt road, she spoke quietly, "I'm not offended by men staring at me, Devon. If I was, I'd  
  
have sworn off the whole gender long ago." The sun was falling toward the horizon. Night was  
  
coming on swift clawed feet.  
  
Emma tried not to be afraid of it.  
  
Joking with Devon helped.  
  
"Sorry. I was just thinking about this afternoon." He said, moving uncomfortably in his  
  
seat. His voice held a musing tone that caught her ear.  
  
"What's on your mind?" She asked quietly, a faint smile forming on her lips. "Or should I  
  
try to guess?"  
  
"Why did you trust me so quickly? I tried to kill you."  
  
"No, you missed on purpose. I could tell. Your emotions were all over the place, but I  
  
could still tell. Woman's intuition." Emma eased down on the brake, the sensation of a cold black  
  
blanket wrapping around her insides temporarily making her unable to focus. Ahead lay Frost  
  
Lake and some kind of base, ruled by Aaron Sheckt. She could sense many men and women  
  
there, every one a ruthless killer, yet nothing of their leader. "I've got very good instincts."  
  
Devon saw something change in Emma's mood. He didn't like it.  
  
"There are a lot of very bad people ahead." Her voice had gone very still, lost most of its  
  
natural warmth. When she set the car into park, Emma turned to Devon and her eyes were still  
  
and dark. "It'd probably be best if you just stayed here. You're a good man Devon. You may  
  
not be sure about that, but I am."  
  
He watched her, uncertain how to respond.  
  
Emma smiled, the expression not quite reaching her eyes. "I'm going to go rescue my  
  
friends. I'm not going to ask you to come. I'm not going to look back. Do you understand?"  
  
Devon nodded.  
  
"Here. I want you to take this." She drew the silenced pistol he'd once pointed at her and  
  
handed it back to him. "I won't think any less of you if you stay with the car."  
  
Without another word, Emma opened her car door and stepped out. She started moving  
  
immediately, heading straight into the trees around Frost Lake, letting her mind guide her toward  
  
her target. She never glanced back, but her ears caught the sound of Devon opening his door,  
  
hesitating, then running after. Emma was grateful. She was also afraid.  
  
On every mission she'd been a part of for Mutant X, Emma DeLauro had never exactly  
  
been afraid. It was odd, but the emotion had never really been there. Certainly she'd been  
  
concerned many times, just never really fearful. In the dark future, she met fear. Now, it walked  
  
beside her. Mutant X was in danger of being broken apart by Aaron Sheckt. Unlike any other  
  
enemy, this mysterious and still unseen man menaced them.  
  
His actions thus far were master strokes, each systematically removing another member of  
  
the team from the others. Emma could sense nothing of his thoughts or emotions, yet instinct  
  
railed at her, screaming that he was inside, waiting like a coiled mamba.  
  
The image of a den of serpents seemed all too perfect.  
  
She could taste the evil radiating off the military base, a sensation that grew worse when  
  
she saw it. The place had once been home to a training camp for marines. Now, though  
  
abandoned by the government, it was still very much in use. High fences surrounded the  
  
perimeter, barbed wire strung from post to post glittered in the almost absent light of eve.  
  
Four watchtowers lorded over the domain of the beast, each maned by a single stone  
  
killer. Emma could sense them, four men in four watchtowers, their long hours spent enthralled  
  
by a dark music played by their murderous hearts. The very act of barely brushing their minds to  
  
learn of their presence left her feeling filthy.  
  
They seemed unaware of her presence, but her mind wasn't set at ease. Sheckt's people  
  
were too good to not expect a rescue attempt. Unless. . . Emma drew a sharp breath, terror  
  
freezing her heart. Reaching out with her gifts, she searched for Adam's mind.  
  
He was alive.  
  
Emma breathed a sigh of relief. Her eyes turned toward the nearest watchtower. The  
  
guard had just stepped outside, his head moving back and forth. Perhaps he'd somehow noticed  
  
her gentle probing. Maybe he'd heard her. "Or maybe he's just paranoid." She muttered to  
  
herself, focusing her attention on the man as she did.  
  
Despite a dramatic increase in her powers of late, Emma needed line of sight for her psi-  
  
bolts. She launched one and the guard fell immediately into an extremely deep unconsciousness.  
  
The other three remained ignorant of intruders.  
  
It seemed far too easy  
  
  
  
  
  
Within the Frost Lake base, inside a hidden room, a man sat watching everything on  
  
security monitors. A twisted smile formed from his dry lips as Emma DeLauro appeared against  
  
a backdrop of trees and evening gloom. He smiled. He thought she was beautiful as she struck  
  
down the guard. She reminded him of an archangel. Purity with power, a warrior of faith and the  
  
sword. He watched her speak to the man with her, Devon Bowden, the hapless husband. He  
  
thought little of the black man, save that there was a role for him to play in this game.  
  
"Like lambs to a slaughter." He whispered to himself as they entered the base, having no  
  
idea that a trap lay ahead.  
  
He reclined in his leather, wingback chair, making a steeple of his finger tips. Much  
  
planning had gone into this operation. Many hours had been spent gathering intelligence,  
  
watching in secret as Mutant X fought against Gabriel Ashlocke. He was glad the planning and  
  
waiting were finally over and victory was so nearly in hand. Oddly, a pang of regret plagued him.  
  
He would miss the spying. It had been enjoyable and educational.  
  
"Yes. Very educational." He muttered, rubbing his chin.  
  
For instance, he'd learned of the love affair between Adam Kane and Emma long before  
  
anyone else. His bugs in Sanctuary had even recorded a secret rendevous. He was surprised  
  
they were sleeping together. By all accounts, their relationship had started merely two weeks  
  
ago. The two acted like lust sick teenagers. Still, he couldn't fault Adam for lacking restraint.  
  
Who could possibly resist such an agreeable woman?  
  
"Unfortunate that their courtship should end like this." The end game had begun. His  
  
men would allow Emma and her partner to wander about for a little while longer, just until the  
  
last guests arrived for the party. He was annoyed by the time taken to capture Charlotte Cooke  
  
and Jesse Kilmartin. He sighed and shook his head. "Good help is so difficult to come by. I  
  
suppose it's my own fault, sending a Trojan Horse into a place I could easily have captured on  
  
my own. But, then again, where would the fun be in frontal assault? And there would be that  
  
terrible mess to clean up after." He stretched. A yawn escaped his lips.  
  
"Perhaps when this is over, I'll convert Sanctuary to my new base of operations. It would  
  
be fitting."  
  
A phone sat on his desk, beside the monitors. It started ringing, a gentle rhythmic pulse  
  
that soothed nerves or flayed them deep to bone. His mood dictated the result. Right now, the  
  
sound felt good. It meant the last pieces of the chess game were moving into place.  
  
He answered with silence.  
  
Let the caller speak first.  
  
"Mr. Sheckt?" The voice was Duncan Ladd's. "Sir, are you there? If you are, I've just  
  
received word from Katherine. She's captured Cooke and Kilmartin. Your plan is working  
  
perfectly. She'll be here with them in a few minutes. DeLauro didn't have much of a head start."  
  
There was a pause. "Sir, are you there? I'm not reporting to myself, am I?"  
  
He laughed. "That is a question best answered by a philosopher. Perhaps we all merely  
  
tell ourselves what we've done. Perhaps all is but a hopeless dream from which there is no  
  
awakening. Coma not continuance."  
  
There was a pause on the line. It grew long. After almost a minute, Duncan broke the  
  
silence. "Sir, during our last conversation, you gave me specific orders regarding DeLauro. Given  
  
the nearness of victory, I thought I should ask if they remain in place. In the past, we've seen  
  
Mutant X gain the upper hand over enemies with only a single member free. You wanted to play  
  
games with Ms. DeLauro, but that was before you had her in the palm of your mighty hand. Do  
  
you wish to proceed as previously ordered or should I have her collected?"  
  
He considered for a moment. Should he change the plan now? Everything seemed to be  
  
going fine, but of all the would-be destroyers of Mutant X, none knew better than he how  
  
resourceful they were Was it worth the risk that they would manage to pull off a miraculous  
  
escape just to watch their hopes be shattered a final time? Was that extra suffering worth such  
  
terrible risk?  
  
The questions were serious; his decision was swift.  
  
"Maintain discipline. Keep to the plan. Handle Emma carefully. She is far more dangerous  
  
than she appears." He paused, wondering if he should reveal more. How much did Duncan  
  
really need to know? Did it matter? It seemed that on the eve of victory, he was being plagued  
  
with self-doubt and questions. He didn't like feeling uncertain. "Do not fail me."  
  
"I never have."  
  
"Is there anything else?"  
  
"Yes. What of DeLauro's accomplice? Mr. Bowden is, by all accounts, a non-threat. Still,  
  
is it wise to afford Mutant X any assistance?" Duncan paused. "We could also use him as a test  
  
for Katherine."  
  
A chuckle. "You still don't trust our dear turncoat?" He didn't wait for an answer.  
  
"Shortly before our special guests reach the central security station, there is a room specifically set  
  
up to watch the garage and prison areas. Notify our assets to neutralize Mr. Bowden. Note that I  
  
want him alive, not unharmed."  
  
"As you command, sir."  
  
He closed his eyes. "One more thing. Leak our location to CIA as soon as Mutant X has  
  
been terminated. This base has seen too much traffic as of late. I highly doubt we can remain here  
  
hidden much longer as it is. Best to let the fools think they found us on their own than to give  
  
them a chance to truly find us."  
  
"It shall be done." Duncan cleared the line.  
  
He leaned back in the chair again, watching the monitors. "Emma." He whispered, his  
  
gaze falling on her newly fiery red hair, her sensual curves, her luscious and lust inducing  
  
qualities. She was inside the base, moving cautiously. She had no clue that he was watching her.  
  
He was pleased by that. He liked the feeling of seeing without being seen. It put him in mind of  
  
God, though before recently he'd never held much credence in faith.  
  
Everything changed two weeks ago. He was free to act upon his plans because of  
  
something that could only be described as divine intervention. Again, his fingers pressed together  
  
in a steeple, he closed his eyes. His bugs had brought him voices from Sanctuary, even video,  
  
from which he'd learned of the strange mission against a modern mutant Bonnie and Clyde team.  
  
He wasn't certain what had become of Portia Klein and Darius Monaco, but he felt certain that  
  
they were no longer important. Somehow during the battle, by a fluke of coincidence, Adam and  
  
Emma had been cast into the future. Once home, they no longer fought against their desires,  
  
except to keep their love hidden from the others.  
  
The things they did speak of, he beheld in dreams.  
  
He could see much of what lay ahead in that future with a clarity that stunned the senses.  
  
From the visions, he'd learned of what they'd seen in the dark place thirty years ahead. In  
  
dreams, he was haunted by a woman. She was dark and colder than a harlot's heart. Her eyes  
  
were coal, her hair mop-like, her skin warmly pink, her body petite at five feet and two. To him,  
  
she was pretty. Not beautiful, not plain. Just pretty. She could have been lovely, had she smiled.   
  
The natural state of her face was an emotionless straight-lined mouth and dead gaze. Of all his  
  
visions, she haunted him most. More than the armies of ivory clad soldiers who did not die, more  
  
than the death camps, this woman gripped his mind.  
  
Most would have said he had a chance to right future wrongs, to prevent the sorrows and  
  
slaughters to come. Indeed, pangs of conscience did on occasion pester his sense of well-being.  
  
There would be changes. Some. He wanted the world ruled by a single supreme leader, himself,  
  
but he wanted to exterminate resistence before it could be born. His time was at hand. In less  
  
than two weeks, his future knowledge had granted him the unlimited resources of Duncan Ladd's  
  
terrorist network. All of that power he now wielded as a weapon against Mutant X.  
  
He was working to prevent the mistakes that would lead to failure.  
  
He had faith now where before there had been only emptiness. Faith in his own power, in  
  
his destiny. Where Mason Eckhart had failed, Aaron Sheckt would triumph.  
  
Adam and Emma believed that their presence was the key to keeping the future from  
  
turning dark. They were wrong. He knew the truth. Yes, their loss would likely devastate  
  
Mutant X. Without Adam's brains and Emma's heart, each more important than some might  
  
think, he knew Mutant X would lose itself to the lies of pretenders and fall into dark deeds.  
  
He also knew they all had to die. The dark future could not be averted by Adam and  
  
Emma's return. In fact, their return had hastened its arrival. He knew. He saw. He alone knew  
  
the threads fate now pulled to take humanity toward a second holocaust. The dreams showed  
  
him that, if Mutant X lived, his dream of conquest would fail, for an evil more powerful than any in  
  
history would rise and scour from the earth all life.  
  
Mason Eckhart was no longer a factor. He would not become emperor.  
  
This was certain.  
  
A new evil claimed his place in the future. The face was still blurred in his latest dreams,  
  
but he knew that, somehow, this new enemy would become unstoppable by claiming the powers  
  
of Mutant X. He could see them in a final battle, facing the faceless destroyer. Their talents  
  
turned against them, they die one by one, until only Adam and Emma remain to be slain. He  
  
dreams of their last act, born of desperation, to stop the enemy. He dreams of their failure.  
  
Eckhart would have ruled for decades. The new enemy that would come, he saw in the  
  
dreams, might rule for centuries. With the power of Mutant X extending to unnatural lengths this  
  
dark soul's life, humanity would enter an age black with evil and pestilent with sorrow.  
  
He could not let this come to pass.  
  
He was the man who should be king. His the hand to strike down all enemies. The dark  
  
evil on the rise knew only devastation. In an amusing way, he realized then, he was working for  
  
the greater good. Better to enslave a world than to murder it.  
  
He watched Emma on the monitors.  
  
He felt tired. The game had been long. This day had drained him. It would be over soon,  
  
which brought an odd melancholy on the heals of mirth. He should have been rejoicing. He  
  
sighed and rubbed at his eyes, feeling fatigued. Two long weeks of preparing had come to this  
  
night. Mutant X would fall, he would win. It was inevitable.  
  
Yet their deaths would leave a hole in his life. He did not know how he would fill it.  
  
How long had he lusted for this moment, this triumph? He'd forgotten.  
  
A least two weeks.  
  
At least.  
  
  
  
  
  
It was too easy.  
  
Standing with her back to a wall, Emma sensed something suspicious. Together with  
  
Devon, she'd taken down four of Aaron Sheckt's soldiers. Every man went down quickly and  
  
quietly, exactly according to plan. Had she been facing the GSA of yesterday, Emma wouldn't  
  
have found herself worrying. Her breath coming in deep, slow inhalations, she could not accept  
  
that terrorists capable of capturing Adam and Brennan were this easy to fight.  
  
Everything was happening according to plan. The problem was, she didn't know if it was  
  
truly her plan or if Sheckt's turn had begun. Before they'd entered the former military base,  
  
Emma had joked to Devon about woman's intuition.  
  
Now, she'd stopped laughing.  
  
The joke was all too real and only a dead man could chuckle at the logic of Sheckt's cold  
  
as gunmetal plot. She knew what the mystery man wanted. Death for Mutant X. Only  
  
peripheral questions remained: how and when and where.  
  
Directly across from here was an unreinforced wood door. Beyond that, two men talking  
  
back and forth, joking. She imagined they might be cleaning guns or perhaps passing back and  
  
forth the latest issue of Maxim magazine. Each laugh she heard made the hair on her neck stand  
  
at attention. It sounded slightly false, almost staged. Somehow, those men knew she was out  
  
there but they planned to let her enter.  
  
It was a trap.  
  
Emma glanced over at Devon. He was standing beside the door, waiting to kick it in.  
  
He'd surprised her. For a private detective, the man had skill. If everything kept going smoothly,  
  
there was a chance he might survive. If she could figure out how to counter Sheckt's still unclear  
  
strategy, she might save her friends. There were far too many if's.  
  
Her muscles were tense and adrenaline was flowing through her veins. She felt pumped  
  
and primed and ready to fight. The uncaring men on the other side couldn't stop her. Nothing  
  
could. Emma felt powerful. Her spirit was strong, her love made her unstoppable.  
  
"If only it were that simple." Maybe in a dream or a television show. In fiction, heros  
  
typically won and villains usually got their butts kicked massively. Unfortunately, this was the  
  
real world. A place where cruelty and evil ruled more than charity and virtue, where the innocent  
  
rarely lived past the long twilight of their screams and sobs. Emma believed she had a chance,  
  
even against Sheckt. His plan had lead her to this moment, but no matter how clever the bastard  
  
was, she knew Adam was more so. Through the connection they'd shared since first making love  
  
in the ashes of the future, she drew her strength. From him, from love, she had hope.  
  
For whatever twisted reason, Sheckt wanted her deep in his territory. Emma closed her  
  
eyes and focused her attentions for a moment. If the big man was on base, she still couldn't feel  
  
him. She turned to Devon.  
  
"I've got a bad feeling. Things are going way too easy."  
  
Devon looked back the way they'd come. "You think we've got company coming?" He  
  
asked quietly, a nervousness bringing to his voice a darker basso edge. His handsome African  
  
features showed that he, too, was questioning their success.  
  
It shouldn't be so easy.  
  
"Sheckt had things planned. Not just with you and your wife. Adam, Brennan and maybe  
  
the rest of Mutant X, he's been five steps ahead the whole time. Almost as if. . . ." Emma  
  
blinked. "Almost as if he could see into the future."  
  
"That's not possible. Right?" Devon asked uncertainly. Before she could answer, he held  
  
up a hand. "Never mind. I don't want to know. Just tell me what you want to do. Keep going  
  
and hope we can avoid the monster's trap doors or cut and run? There's only two of us. Maybe  
  
we could call in the FBI or something." He watched her face turn slightly dark and sighed. "Not  
  
a good idea, right?"  
  
"There's no way to be sure the government would help us. Sheckt might have connections  
  
or at the very least, he might have informants. Double agents placed in the intelligence services."  
  
Drawing her thoughts together into a coherent ball of psychic force, Emma prepared for a fight.  
  
"We are on our own. Kick the door."  
  
Devon didn't waste time before obeying. He spun around and shattered the door with a  
  
mighty thrust of his leg. On the other side, two men dove for cover, one narrowly dodging the  
  
psi-bolt Emma launched before jumping to the side. A stuttering rush of machine gun bullets  
  
smashed into the wall half a heartbeat behind her. She saw Devon jerk backwards and almost  
  
fall. After so many easy victories, things were getting interesting.  
  
From inside the room, one of the men shouted, "Surrender!"  
  
Emma rolled her eyes. "Right, because I want to die today. God, they can't really think  
  
we're that dumb."  
  
Another burst of lead drowned out all other sounds. If not for her gifts, Emma wouldn't  
  
have known that it was cover for one of the soldiers to rush the door. She rolled under the  
  
barrage, hit the man with a psi-bolt before he could reach the door, and leapt back to her feet  
  
beside Devon. "Now that," her ally smilingly said, "was something."  
  
"You should see my friend Shalimar. By now, she'd have disarmed them both." Closing  
  
her eyes to concentrate, Emma focused on the second gunman. He was crouched behind  
  
something, she'd seen him as she put down his buddy. His cover was too good, his ammo far too  
  
plentiful. Emma had to do something drastic or risk losing everything. She had to do something  
  
dangerous and very unpleasant.  
  
Now, her mind reached out to the second gunman. Line of sight was necessary for most  
  
of her abilities. Not all. She felt power building inside her mind. "Devon, I want you to brace  
  
yourself. This is going to be a bit messy."  
  
Before the man could answer, Emma let loose.  
  
Dark psionic force rushed out from her mind in all directions for a short distance. Her  
  
enemy dropped his weapon to grip at his head and whimper. More power tried to push out, but  
  
Emma held back, caught it and wrenched the telempathic energies back into herself. The effort  
  
required to do only the bare minimum, just to disarm her enemy, made her head throb with pain.  
  
Had she been around Adam or any of the others, she wouldn't have used this aspect of her  
  
power except as an absolute last resort.  
  
"Holy mother, what was that?" Devon asked from the floor. He lay there, shivering, his  
  
weapon forgotten.  
  
Emma didn't bother to answer him. She stepped calmly into the room and glared at the  
  
soldier who'd moments before been shooting at her with intent to kill. Her eyes glimmered with  
  
energy for a second then were normal. A psi-bolt rushed out and knocked him unconscious.  
  
Only when she was certain that no one else lay in wait did Emma collapse into a chair. She  
  
needed to catch her breath, scan the area to make sure that no one caught even an echo of the  
  
pulse she'd used.  
  
Moments later, as she stood again, Devon stumbled through the door. His coffee skin  
  
seemed faintly pallid. "Emma, what was that? Did you do that?"  
  
"Yes. Now forget." She turned her head toward him and used a psi-bolt to scrub away  
  
the thing she had done, cleansing his memory of the last few minutes. He squinted then rubbed  
  
his left temple with his free hand.  
  
"I get knocked out or something? How did we get in here?"  
  
"Doesn't matter." Emma said as she walked over to a bank of computer monitors. "I've  
  
got a visual feed on the prison. My team is there. My friends." Her voice trembled slightly with  
  
fear. Sheckt had been more thorough than she thought. In addition to Adam and Brennan, he  
  
had Shalimar too.  
  
None of them looked to be in the best of shape. She saw Adam limping; her heart ached  
  
at the sight. "Oh, your leg." She whispered gently, her hand reaching out and softly touching the  
  
screen image.  
  
She tapped at the controls, applying everything she'd learned from Jesse Kilmartin and a  
  
few tricks her old friend Michelle Bigelow taught her. The system was simple and straight  
  
forward, a security station set up to monitor only two areas: a garage area for vehicles at the back  
  
of the base and the prison. Emma didn't bother to try and remember the proper military terms as  
  
she breached a computer firewall to run through other cameras. She left one monitor on the  
  
garage area, just incase Sheckt had reinforcements coming.  
  
So far, things seemed to be safe.  
  
Before she could do much more than make a cursory scan of hallways and offices, a truck  
  
appeared on the garage screen.  
  
Devon let out a gasp. "That's Katherine!" He drew close and leaned in, dwarfing the  
  
screen with his bulk, hoarding the unimaginable sight of his wife stepping calmly down from that  
  
truck. The driver followed swiftly. Both went to the back and opened it with twin keys. Even  
  
before Jesse was shoved out by an unseen guard, Emma knew.  
  
"What's going on?" Taking a step backwards, Devon seemed to be shaking, almost as if  
  
having a seizure. He looked so confused, his eyes dead set on the screen as his wife's image  
  
moved toward Jesse and kicked him in the belly.  
  
Silently, Emma read her lips as she spoke. She imagined in her mind a voice for this  
  
beautiful woman who seemed too angelic to be the beast. 'Get up freak,' Katherine hissed at  
  
Jesse before sweeping his hands from beneath him as he tried. 'Is this the great Mutant X? Felled  
  
by a mere mortal?' She reached down and bodily hauled Jesse to his feet before shoving him into  
  
waiting guards.  
  
Following him came Charlotte, cast out of the truck by one of three men who'd ridden in  
  
back. Katherine faced her, face twisting as if at a putrid scent.  
  
'Mr. Sheckt has business with you, Ms. Cooke.' The silence of the monitors broken by  
  
the words playing in Emma's mind and the gasping of Devon. Charlotte was given to the other  
  
guards as well, then both were marched away. On their way to the prison and their deaths, if  
  
Emma failed.  
  
"Devon, we have to leave here. This room isn't safe."  
  
No response came and Emma turned to the man. His eyes were on the screen, on his wife,  
  
as a man came out to meet her. They were talking. He knew what they were saying, as Emma  
  
did. He was reading lips too. The actions and the words came to him. Unlike his partner, he  
  
spoke aloud what was said.  
  
"Hello my dear Duncan, come to congratulate me?" He said as Katherine's lips moved.  
  
"No. More to grant a mixed review. Your service to Mr. Sheckt is recognized, however,  
  
and as such, we will maintain our end of the bargain. Your husband's fate is yours to decide."  
  
These, the words of Duncan, came also from Devon's lips.  
  
"Fine," Katherine mouthed, "I owe Sheckt my allegiance, the least he can do is give me  
  
my fun."  
  
Now, Emma felt her mind piecing the puzzle together at last. It was not Devon who had  
  
been intended as a weapon against her team. He was nothing more than a simple pawn in a chess  
  
game of infinite stakes. The real weapon of choice, the queen sliding to checkmate, was  
  
Katherine. Her mind whirled with sudden revelation. Everything that had happened, all of it, was  
  
according to Sheckt's plan.  
  
Her heart stopped beating for one instant in time. She spun around, hoping to prevent  
  
what she suddenly knew was inevitable. Someone slammed a fist into her jaw, loosening several  
  
teeth, driving her to the floor where she spat out a red froth.  
  
A whoosh of air and a terrible snapping noise filled the room as an injector was pressed  
  
against her neck and the governor bit deep. It filled her briefly with a terrible pain, like the weight  
  
of all man's sins. Crushing.  
  
"That should keep you from making any foolish choices."  
  
Devon never got the chance to turn. Two of Sheckt's guard's grabbed him and slammed  
  
his head against the monitor he'd been enslaved by. His face shattered the glass. Blood drizzled  
  
from a dozen cuts as they heaved him into a wall, uncaring, cruel, and with malice.  
  
"You must be the infamous Emma DeLauro."  
  
From the floor, Emma turned her head and looked up. The man standing over her wasn't  
  
anyone special. His name was unknown. He was nondescript in face, form, and function. He  
  
was just a flunkey. A no one.  
  
Emma broke into laughter.  
  
She couldn't help herself.  
  
It was funny.  
  
Only after the man landed a blow that bruised several ribs, only as she was being dragged  
  
by the roots of her hair out of the room, did it occur to her how much a laugh sounds like a sob.  
  
Mutant X was done for. Nothing left but the dying.  
  
"Adam," she sputtered through blood stained lips, "I'm sorry."  
  
  
  
  
  
He'd chosen the office in which he stood, head bowed slightly, for three reasons. First, it  
  
was largest of all his base's rooms. Second, it was already furnished to his tastes, new but with a  
  
decidedly regal antique feel. Third, and most importantly, a helicopter landing pad lay but a  
  
stone's throw from the spot on which he stood. He smiled. His eyes tracked to the chopper that  
  
waited to take him away from this place.  
  
"The game is over. All that remains are the pretensions of my executioner." He reached  
  
out toward what seemed bare wall and touched a hidden screen. A biometric scanner triggered  
  
at the pressure. Red light glowed beneath the false wood illusion.  
  
An electronic voice bellowed, "state password."  
  
He drew a deep breath. The rules were still in play, even if the game were nearly at its  
  
inevitable end. No more moves were left for Mutant X now. He hesitated only a moment, then  
  
said "Checkmate."  
  
The sound of a mechanical lock shifting seeped from the wall. "State name." The  
  
machine commanded.  
  
"Aaron M. Sheckt."  
  
"State command."  
  
He licked his lips. The game would end with his next words. He glanced over to his desk,  
  
to the phone there. Should he warn Duncan of his plan before going? Should he save his most  
  
loyal servant?  
  
"Perhaps not," he muttered coldly. "He built the armies I now control. Best to put him  
  
away before he grows bold enough to try to reclaim them." Eyes growing dark, lips curling to a  
  
deeper yet more malevolent smile, he focused on the machine and spoke in a loud and clear  
  
voice. "Command: Scorched Earth. Set for one hour."  
  
"Command acknowledged, Aaron M. Sheckt. System complying. Initiating lockdown  
  
protocol Omega." The computer voice went silent with that. It would be silent forever. Now, in  
  
a matter of minutes, everything would be sealed.  
  
He wondered if he should warn Duncan, grant him a chance to continue serving.  
  
"Perhaps not. A man so trusting, yet masterful in the arts of torture and terrorism, is far  
  
too unstable to make the proper long-term ally." His face darkening with cold determination, he  
  
activated a simple transmitter built into the computer terminal. "Mr. Ladd, this is Sheckt. I need  
  
you to coordinate our forces and prepare them for a full review. Inform our men that anyone  
  
outside the base after five minutes will be dealt with harshly. I'm locking us down for the next few  
  
hours. Sheckt out."  
  
He drew his hand away and the wall seemed innocent again. "Thus ends the endgame.  
  
Surprisingly, I feel some hesitant remorse." He brushed a mote of dust from his otherwise  
  
impeccably clean black suit. "Give the reaper my regards mister Ladd."  
  
He walked calmly outside. Everything seemed cloaked in a murky softness that made all  
  
the harsh lines of things blend together in a harmony. He paused mid step, struck to stillness by  
  
night's beauty. A poem sprang to mind, but he refrained. The time for such things was later,  
  
when his safety was assured.  
  
The helicopter waited, perched upon its private place, blades slowly revving up. Bits of  
  
dry dead things whirled as an ersatz tornado was born. Out upon the lake, moonlight reflected in  
  
a beautiful display of nature's wonder. The scent of night blooms carried to his nose. He let  
  
himself breath in deep, even as the rotor blades sent up plumes of dust. Victory smelled sweeter  
  
than he'd ever imagined it could.  
  
He climbed aboard at last. Once inside, he used a remote to cause blast doors to seal the  
  
way behind him. There was no way out now. The base would soon fulfill a purpose it had never  
  
been intended for, but would serve well.  
  
It would be a tomb.  
  
All his past buried in one pillar of flame and fear.  
  
The helicopter rose into the air and faded into the night, carrying Aaron Sheckt, master of  
  
the game. He was secure in the knowledge that nothing would go wrong now. Every precaution  
  
had been taken, every governor used. No one remained free to oppose him. His soldiers were  
  
loyal to the point of idiocy. They would all die believing he'd intended to take them with him to  
  
his new base, that he'd genuinely cared about their lives.  
  
"Poor delusional fools." He muttered as the chopper continued to distance itself from the  
  
base that would soon be little more than a faded memory. "They remind me of Adam Kane's  
  
people. Never questioning their leader or his reasons. Always trusting, always certain of the  
  
rightness of their cause and all too willing to risk everything for it. I've never been a man to risk  
  
everything for anything. My life is precious to me."  
  
He smirked and found himself chuckling quietly. Then he was laughing softly. "Strange  
  
how our perspectives change, isn't it? How we mistakenly hate our lives only to realize, as death  
  
draws us to his eternal kiss, that we don't wish to die yet. . . it is an oddity of humans that we  
  
have such complex paradoxes within us."  
  
The words were directed toward the front of the helicopter. It was the first time since  
  
entering that he'd acknowledged a pilot. An outside observer, focused only on him, might have  
  
failed to see her.  
  
Even seated she was tall, almost forced to crouch to fly. Almost. Her hair was very long  
  
and fell out across broad shoulders. A permanent expression of calm self-assurance claimed her  
  
face. When she heard her master's voice, her ears perked up and a reptilian third eyelid slid  
  
closed then reopened. Reflexes honed by thousands of hours training kept her focus on flight  
  
while her attention turned to him.  
  
"Isn't it just bewildering how our lives can change in an instant Ms. Isley?"  
  
"Yes, sir. It certainly is." The woman said as she turned the helicopter slightly, keeping it  
  
perfectly on course. She wanted to face him but dared not. She could risk no harm to him, not  
  
even for a glimpse of his face. "When I worked for the GSA, I thought my life had meaning.  
  
When I managed to escape Gabriel Ashlocke's attack, I nearly died of self loathing before you  
  
found me."  
  
She visibly shivered. "I can still remember the screaming."  
  
His hand rose to her face, the back of a finger tip brushing down the side of a sculpted  
  
cheek. "Memory now. Unimportant." He withdrew to the darkness of his seat, the luxury of  
  
leather and steel. "Take us home."  
  
She obeyed.  
  
  
  
  
  
Devon prayed.  
  
He hadn't done that in a long time, not really. Before setting out to try to kill Emma, at  
  
least going through the motions of trying, he thought he'd prayed. That hadn't been prayer. It  
  
had been a child's desperate bargaining. Save me and I'll be good, I promise.  
  
Now was the real thing. No bargaining for a miracle or for his life to be saved. He asked  
  
for his wife's soul to be spared.  
  
Emma heard him through the sounds of men marching about outside of their cell. Duncan  
  
Ladd had ordered them placed in a locale far from her friends. He wanted her to die without  
  
seeing Adam. He wanted her alone. At the end of dreams, she wished with all her heart to see  
  
the man she'd only so recently held and loved, if only for just a second more.  
  
Without meaning to, she prayed.  
  
She prayed for her friends, for her loved ones.  
  
The door opened. Devon looked up, hand raised to shield his eyes against a harsh white  
  
glare from outside. A woman slowly strode in. Emma did not turn to watch her. She knew who  
  
had come. Even without her powers, she knew.  
  
"Hello my husband."  
  
"Katherine? Is that you?" Tears streamed down his face. "Have you come to free us?"  
  
There was a sound. Metal brushing metal. A loud clack as something snapped shut. It  
  
wasn't something Emma heard often. At least, she hadn't heard it often until recently. The  
  
reverberating echoes of steel movements filled her ears and did not leave. They played again and  
  
again; the grave keeper's music.  
  
Emma felt the barrel of the pistol as it was aimed at her and Devon, as if it stared down  
  
upon her with firebrand eyes, it's dark and fanatical gaze a prelude to death. Here the killing  
  
stroke, the culling of the living to feed the carrion eaters.  
  
Quietly, ever so gently, Katherine spoke, whispered.  
  
"Yes. I've come to free you."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
***************************END OF PART FIVE***************************** 


	6. Deceptive Appearances

Part Six  
  
Deceptive Appearances  
  
  
  
  
  
Charlotte was pacing in front of the cell door. "This whole situation is stupid." She  
  
grumbled, turning on her heels to face everyone. "Seriously, are your lives always like this? I  
  
mean, one minute mine was just fine, thank you. Then, out of nowhere, come two psychos who  
  
kill all my friends and want to take me prisoner for some reason. God only knows why."  
  
"I'll bet your winning personality wasn't it." The grumble came from Shalimar, who sat in  
  
a corner with Brennan, cleaning his blooded face as best she could. Her eyes would have flashed  
  
with fire if not for the governor, but the repressed Feral predator lashed out regardless. "Instead  
  
of complaining, why don't you do something useful?"  
  
Angrily, Charlotte stamped her foot. "Why don't you? Like cleaning your boyfriend up is  
  
a major priority!"  
  
"Oh and whining is?" Shalimar retorted.  
  
Coming immediately to the side of the dark-haired outsider, Jesse placed a hand upon her  
  
arm and stared down at his blonde teammate. He surprised her by saying "back off. She's got a  
  
right to be upset. She didn't ask for this. We signed up, we wanted to play hero and make things  
  
better for the world. No one bothered to ask Charlotte what she thought of having her life made  
  
into a living hell."  
  
His expression softened slightly. "I know you're worried. Brennan's hurt, we're caught  
  
and Emma's out there with the husband of a traitorous psycho. Getting in Charlotte's face won't  
  
change any of that." Jesse sighed. "How is Brennan?"  
  
A groan was his answer. "I'll be fine if everyone will stop hissing at each other like a  
  
bunch of alley cats."  
  
Shalimar stared down at her friend with an air of indignance. "What exactly is that  
  
supposed to mean?" She asked in that dangerous, quiet tone which only a woman can truly excel  
  
at producing.  
  
"You see, even her squeaky mouse thinks she's wasting time." Charlotte said with a  
  
snort. She leaned into Jesse, laying her head against his shoulder for a moment. "Seriously, is it  
  
always like this for you guys? Guns blazing, people dying, people betraying you left and right, the  
  
team broken up like a shattered piece of sculpture."  
  
Jesse sighed. "It's usually a bit more pulled together. Normally, we have one mission.  
  
This feels like five or six. First Gabriel, then rescuing you while Adam, Emma, and Brennan were  
  
nearly assassinated. Then searching for Shalimar and finding Katherine."  
  
"Who's the wife of our buddy Devon. Great taste in women he's got." Brennan muttered  
  
as Shalimar swiped at the dry blood on his face. She pressed down slightly, sending fire through  
  
his afflicted flesh. "Ow! Hey, watch it. I'm bruised like a rotten grape." He turned toward Jesse  
  
and Charlotte, narrowed eyes fixed. "What happened next anyway? You guys were caught off  
  
guard by the blonde bombshell?"  
  
Charlotte ran a hand through her black hair. Fatigue was evident on her face. Dark  
  
circles had formed under each eye and she spoke with a methodical tone, as if she had to think  
  
carefully about every word. "Actually, yeah. But before that, Jesse here revealed that you guys  
  
travel through time now. Or at least Adam and Emma do."  
  
"Now that was definitely not normal." Shalimar said as she finished cleaning Brennan's  
  
face. "As good as it gets for now. I'll do a more thorough job later."  
  
"If there is a later." He said quietly.  
  
A silence descended like a spider to a quivering fly.  
  
Jesse rolled his eyes and tried to put an upbeat tone to his voice. "Gee, Brennan,  
  
whatever happened to the optimistic guy I used to know?"  
  
"Uh, he got a rifle butt smashed into his skull." Brennan replied, throwing a gesture at his  
  
beaten face. "That has a tendency to knock sense into a man. We're trapped here. The woman  
  
we were coming to help is one of the bad guys. We're being held by professionals who know to  
  
use subdermal governors and heavy metal doors. They're too good to just let us get away. Face  
  
it, we are screwed." He raised an eyebrow. "Honestly, I think that is the optimistic response to  
  
a situation this dismal."  
  
"That's exactly how I see it." Charlotte said as she started pacing again. "This whole day  
  
has been one insane turn after another. It's like we're living in someone's twisted fantasy world  
  
where everyone's out to kill us or use us for some twisted plan. And no one can be trusted  
  
because they could be an enemy in disguise." As she spoke, she tapped her foot nervously and  
  
folded her arms across her chest. "Everything's twisted and crazy."  
  
Standing up, Shalimar regarded her with a cold face. She was tired of listening to  
  
complaints. "Could you possibly use the word 'twisted' a few more times? Please, I never tire  
  
of it." The anger was born of fatigue, as was Charlotte's. That did not, however, diminish it.  
  
"Oh go to hell Rambo Barbie."  
  
Both Brennan and Jesse took steps to keep the two women from killing each other. The  
  
darker haired man grabbed the blonde's arm and drew her close, whispering quickly in her ear.  
  
Jesse reached out and gently touched Charlotte's shoulder, recapturing the lady's attention. She  
  
looked into his eyes, then sighed.  
  
"Sorry. I'm being a bitch." Charlotte mumbled under her breath. "This mess is just  
  
making me loony. I've got no right to take it out on you."  
  
"Yeah. I'm sorry too." Speaking softly, Shalimar smiled. "Truce?"  
  
A smile formed on the brunette's face. "Absolutely. I don't want to fight with you. You'll  
  
totally kick my butt."  
  
"I think you'd give as good as you'd get."  
  
"Everyone be quiet, please, I'm trying to think."  
  
They turned to Adam, who was lying on the floor, his eyes closed, looking like some sort  
  
of meditating monk. He sat up briefly, regarding them with annoyance. Of all them, he seemed  
  
the calmest and most hopeful. "Emma's here. And that Devon character. They're looking for us."  
  
He frowned. "Our best chance of getting out of here comes from working together. Not acting  
  
like children."  
  
The all looked sheepish, especially Charlotte. "This is all my fault." She whispered.  
  
"None of this would have happened if I hadn't called you, Jesse."  
  
"That's not true and you know it. Sheckt has an agenda. It includes you. And us." Jesse  
  
walked over to a wall. He leaned against the hard smooth stones, feeling like a train had run over  
  
him several times. The day was catching up with all of them. Too much had happened in too few  
  
hours. Charlotte, Katherine, Sheckt, Duncan, Gabriel and more. It wasn't over yet either, he  
  
could feel it. "I'm so tired."  
  
"You're not the only one brother." Those words from Brennan as he lay back against the  
  
one of the walls, wincing as his bruised head touched rock. "When this is over, I'm sleeping for  
  
a long time. One way or the other."  
  
Adam lay back down. He closed his eyes and covered them with his hands. "Shut up. All  
  
of you. I'm trying to contact Emma, to let her know where we are." The exhaustion in his voice  
  
was greater than all the others combined. Being the leader, he'd been drained by the other's tales  
  
of tribulation. He'd been beaten worse than Brennan, but no one had offered to clean his  
  
wounds. Stoic and caring, Adam rarely got angry with his team. His patience did have limits  
  
though.  
  
Far worse than the wounds of flesh were those of mind. He'd felt something sharp and  
  
disturbing moments before. It had come a few minutes earlier, when Sheckt's guards came to  
  
deposit Jesse and Charlotte. The sensation had left him chilled to the core. He knew something  
  
had happened to Emma, something bad.  
  
The psychic bond they'd formed was very limited, little more than informed instinct. Yet,  
  
it was something he treasured deeply. It's fragile power could only be severed by subdermal  
  
governor or death. Adam was terrified that the feeling he'd had before was one of those things  
  
occurring. He put on a brave face, but it was only a facade to protect his team.  
  
Jesse turned to Brennan, a curious look on his face. "How can he contact Emma? I didn't  
  
think she had a really good handle of that aspect of her powers. I know she found you once, but  
  
wasn't that more fluke than focus?"  
  
Pulling himself to a standing position was difficult, Shalimar had to help him, but Brennan  
  
did it so that he could be face to face with his friend. He took a deep breath, gathering his  
  
strength, then stopped himself from answering.  
  
His eyes went to Adam, who was sitting up again. There was a strangely morose quality  
  
to the older man's expression. He seemed weighted down, hesitant, as if his genius brain were  
  
rendered completely unable to process the thought of Jesse and Shalimar learning the truth.  
  
Perhaps, though he'd told Emma differently, he too harbored a certainty that they would not  
  
understand nor accept.  
  
An unspoken agreement passed between he and Brennan. The younger man nodded and  
  
braced himself to remain standing but did not speak.  
  
This wasn't his news to deliver.  
  
Adam quietly rose. He reached a hand to his forehead and gravely traced the worry lines  
  
and age creases. Absurdly, thinking of how many years he'd lived emboldened him, gave him an  
  
odd measure of peaceful courage. Still, it was all he could do not to let the nervousness inside  
  
him show. Emma had revealed the secret to Brennan, now it was his turn.  
  
"The past two weeks. . . ." His voice trailed off. He sighed deeply. "The past two  
  
weeks, Emma and I have grown. . . close. For a long time, we've been drawn to each other.  
  
Somehow, we found something in that nightmare future. Something that brought us together."  
  
He paused, searching his friend's eyes for any trace of a bad reaction. He wasn't sure what to  
  
expect or why he might expect it. Fear was it's own meaning.  
  
"I love her. We're in love."  
  
Perhaps because she was an outsider, Charlotte Cooke needed only a few moments to  
  
assimilate Adam's declaration. Her smile was as warm as she could manage under the  
  
circumstances, surprisingly heartfelt and more than a little contagious. "Hey, that's great!" She  
  
said, her expression kind. "You deserve to be happy."  
  
The upbeat reaction reminded Adam just how far this woman had come. Her bitterness,  
  
her anger, no longer ruled her heart, though he doubted they were erased. He was relieved by  
  
Charlotte's response to his news.  
  
"What did you say?" Shalimar asked in a voice filled with nothing less than utter  
  
confusion.  
  
Opened mouthed, Jesse turned to Brennan. He pointed a finger at the man. "Did you  
  
know about this? How could you not tell me if you knew about this?" Facing Adam again, he  
  
seemed truly irritated. "How did this happen?"  
  
"Um, isn't this good news?" Charlotte asked, her head cocked, as she ran fingers through  
  
her midnight locks. The stance she took was reminiscent of a fashion shoot. "Jesse, isn't this a  
  
good thing no matter how it happened? Don't Adam and Emma deserve something? Even if,  
  
maybe especially if, it's with each other?"  
  
No words properly describe the glare Shalimar sent her.  
  
At least, none known to humans. Certain large felines might have the vocabulary, though  
  
not the means, to define.  
  
Jesse's face was a mixture of uncertainty as he rubbed his chin. There had been ten  
  
thousand signs that something was going on between them, yet he'd disregarded them all. Now,  
  
memories of private conversations, distant expressions, and uncontrollable bright smiles when the  
  
other was around filled his mind. Charlotte's words echoed within, a mantra focusing his soul.  
  
'Don't Adam and Emma deserve something? Even if, maybe especially if, it's with each  
  
other?' Those words drifted with Jesse's thoughts until he faced his leader and friend.  
  
"When we first met, I remember thinking, you seemed sad. After working with you for so  
  
long, I think I've learned a lot about you Adam." He took a breath before the plunge. "Emma's  
  
a friend. So are you. If being together is what both of you want, then all I have to say is  
  
congratulations. That, and I'm annoyed no one let me in on this one."  
  
"Thank you Jesse." The words blew from Adam's lips as he let out a breath he hadn't  
  
known he was holding. He turned to Shalimar, who seemed inscrutably Sphinx-like. Her  
  
expression held nothing readable. Shifting emotions. An ocean of ambiguity. Not even at their  
  
best could the most intricate cipher texts invented by the CIA be harder to decode than her  
  
expression. Without wanting to know the answer, Adam reached out to her and asked "are you  
  
alright with this Shalimar?"  
  
At the question, she jerked, as if shocked by his words. Her stare was blank, all shell  
  
shock without the shell.  
  
"You and Emma?" Her voice was low, barely a whisper.  
  
Shaking her head, as if the very idea horrified her, Shalimar just stared at him.  
  
He withdrew his offered hand, worry clouding his face.  
  
"Shalimar, I don't know how I expected you to react, but you're taking this hard."  
  
Her laughter turned his fright to outright concerned fear. It sounded crazy.  
  
"Hard? Hard?" A step back and she bumped into Brennan, who wrapped his arms around  
  
her, though he was still unsteady on his feet. That touch calmed her. Her eyes closed so tightly  
  
tears were forced out. Ever since he'd entered her life, she'd thought of Adam as a surrogate  
  
father. Mutant X was like her family. Emma was her best friend. She stared at him, unable to  
  
comprehend it all. "Adam, tell me we're being crazy here. Tell me we've just gone through too  
  
much insanity today and this is all in our heads."  
  
He didn't answer.  
  
That was answer enough for both of them.  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
Duncan Ladd twitched at his desk, unable to fully keep a deep-rooted paranoia from  
  
ensnaring his mind. The computer had locked down the base. It wasn't the first time that had  
  
been done, but something felt different now. "Call me, Sheckt. Come on, just tell me what this  
  
review is all about." He muttered to himself. The quiet fear needed some alleviation, even if it  
  
amounted to no more than a whistled tune in a darkened graveyard.  
  
The door opened. He looked up and Katherine was there. Her face was a mask of  
  
emotionlessness, poorly cloaking sorrow.  
  
"You look tired."  
  
She sighed. "I am. Today hasn't exactly been as much fun as I expected."  
  
"Tomorrow will be better. A victory always tastes bittersweet in the beginning, what with  
  
the thrill of planning and execution out of the way. Like waking Christmas morning and opening  
  
presents. At first, you're vaguely disappointed in what's in front of you, just because you could  
  
anticipate anything in those boxes. Later, you realize how great it all is."  
  
Katherine nodded, acknowledging the sage wisdom. "Sheckt locked us in, didn't he?"  
  
She sat down in a small, grey cushioned chair, sighed and glanced around the room, her gaze  
  
taking snapshots of everything. An old calendar with smiling children, a bit of trash in one corner,  
  
file cabinets and hundreds of ghosts haunting the lair of a monster. She settled on Duncan's face,  
  
finding his strange smile slightly disturbing. "Why do you think he did this?"  
  
"I don't know. Perhaps he was worried." A laugh. "Imagine that, Aaron Sheckt worried.  
  
No, forget that. He's a brilliant tactician. Likely, he's preparing for the next phase of his plan.  
  
Once Mutant X is dead, I'm sure he'll inform us as to what exactly that is. Locking down the  
  
base was just an easy way to get everyone together and make sure they're ready for action."  
  
"You sound nervous."  
  
Once, when she was very small, Katherine had come across a sick puppy. The animal had  
  
been bitten by something rabid and, not understanding the danger, she'd tried to help it. She  
  
remembered very vividly the way that dog's eyes shifted from sweet and terribly confused to  
  
manically homicidal. She was reminded of it when Duncan glared at her. That was how he'd  
  
always seemed to her: a mad dog.  
  
His breathing was shallow but very deep at the same time. Nostrils flared with each  
  
exhalation, lifelessly cruel eyes watched with inhuman patience. She'd never been exactly certain  
  
how Sheckt came to control Duncan so completely, but Katherine always knew that control was  
  
paper thin.  
  
"Sometimes, I find myself very close to tearing you apart. I tolerate your bluntness  
  
because you're the only one on this base, other than Mr. Sheckt, who dares talk to me like that.  
  
It's refreshing in small doses." He sat back in his chair and set his hands down on the desk.  
  
Quietly, he asked, "you have dealt with Emma DeLauro, correct?"  
  
Katherine, unwilling to put her actions to words, didn't answer. She did, however, lower  
  
her eyes ever so slightly.  
  
Duncan nodded. "Good. It is as Sheckt wanted. The lady first."  
  
"Strange. I thought I'd enjoy it more."  
  
"Not to appear cliched, but practice makes perfect. You need to expand your repertoire  
  
from simple gunshots to a more varied palette of torture." He smirked slightly. "Perhaps you're  
  
feeling some remnant of conscience. Believe me, it passes with time." Duncan lowered his voice  
  
to whisper conspiratorially. "What about your husband?"  
  
Wrapping her arms around her shoulders, Katherine closed her eyes and let her head loll  
  
back against her shoulders, plotting the words that came carefully. "He saw. It will take a while  
  
to make him understand. He always was a bit too softhearted for his own good." She spoke in a  
  
dull voice, not quite emotionless but touched by apathy. "I'm having him moved to better  
  
quarters, or at least more enlightening ones, since he's to witness everything. The men escorting  
  
Ms. DeLauro will take him."  
  
A dark smirk formed on Duncan's lips. "You decided to economize and have the guards  
  
bringing Emma's body back to her team drag your poor fool of a husband to Mutant X's cell with  
  
them. That's sick."  
  
"Coming from you, I'll take that as a complement."  
  
"What does that mean?"  
  
"You didn't really expect me not to notice those cameras you'd set up, did you?"  
  
The most unusual expression came over Duncan's face, a mix of surprise and pride with a  
  
gleeful undertone. "Strange how they stopped working after you fired that first shot. Audio  
  
indicated a struggle." He raised an eyebrow, the glittering madness in his eyes more pronounced  
  
than before as his voice grew chilled and deep. "Perhaps there's something of importance for you  
  
to tell me?"  
  
"No, not really." She said casually, as if discussing the event of opening a mundane bag of  
  
groceries. "My husband tried to play hero, deflected my first round into your camera. Devon  
  
failed to prevent my next shot. He hoped to protect Ms. DeLauro but wasn't very successful in  
  
the end. I did not fail to accomplish my mission if that is what you're implying."  
  
"Oh, no. I'd never imply any such thing."  
  
She stared at Duncan with cold eyes. "I got the distinct feeling, upon noticing that  
  
surveillance system, that you don't trust me."  
  
He chuckled. "My dear lady, you worry too much."  
  
The office seemed to grow momentarily icy, with Duncan leaning back, his eyes growing  
  
less maniacal and more lethally intense. His movements were very nonchalant, as were his words,  
  
but they did not ring with truth. Gifted as he was with torture, his skill with prevarication, the art  
  
of crafting falsehoods, seemed lacking. When he looked at her and said "your paranoia was  
  
merely my precaution," she knew that Duncan wasn't being honest.  
  
He smiled oilily. "You have my complete confidence."  
  
'Liar,' she thought coldly while saying. "I'm fortunate to have it."  
  
Katherine was about to say something more, when a phone rang. At first, she could not  
  
identify the source. Then Duncan stood up and set his palm against the wall behind him. A  
  
hidden panel slid into the wall and revealed a small but lavish room, decorated in antiquities and  
  
trophies from past victims, grisly things mixed with bits of torn cloth and jewelry. He stepped  
  
back, blocking as much of it from sight as he could.  
  
"Mr. Sheckt is calling. This conversation is still classified. Though, if we are to receive our  
  
just reward for serving, perhaps soon you will be privy to such calls and I will be at his right hand.  
  
Privy to everything else."  
  
He closed the panel behind him, leaving Katherine in relative peace. Quietly, she  
  
withdrew a tiny device from her pocket. Pressing a button left it blinking, a pulsing blue light that  
  
seemed to smile and say "don't worry, be happy."  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
All five were standing in the cell, Brennan a tad shakily, as they talked and argued.  
  
Adam's admission of a relationship with Emma had thrown Shalimar. In some strange way, she  
  
felt betrayed. The others wanted to help her accept, but she didn't want to be helped. "I have a  
  
right to be angry," she said quietly as she stared out the cell door window, watching the blank  
  
walls beyond.  
  
"Why? Shalimar, I don't understand why you're reacting this way."  
  
She turned back, staring hard at Adam. "What? Did you think I'd throw you a party or  
  
something? You knew we'd be upset or you would have said something long ago."  
  
"That's true." Adam sighed and shook his head. "Emma believed all of you would turn  
  
against us. Personally, I wanted to believe differently, although I have to admit feeling some  
  
uncertainty. Jesse and Brennan seem fine though." He glanced over at the two were standing in a  
  
group with Charlotte, not quite part of the conversation. "You're having a worse reaction than  
  
either of them."  
  
"I feel betrayed."  
  
"And I don't understand that." Adam said, shaking his head. "I don't understand at all.  
  
We've been friends for a long time. I took care of you, helped you, when your family rejected  
  
you. Ever since she joined the team, Emma's been your best friend. We've both been there,  
  
through the tears and the laughter, Shalimar."  
  
"I know." She whispered.  
  
"Then explain to me why you feel betrayed. Tell me why you feel so hurt. It's not like you  
  
and I were ever in love." Behind him, Brennan shivered at the very thought. Jesse got a funny  
  
look on his face. Charlotte shrugged. Watching his teammate, uncertain how to go on, Adam  
  
had a thought. "Shalimar, are you upset because I'm with Emma, or because I'm with someone  
  
period?"  
  
Shalimar threw her hands in the air. "I don't know. My emotions are all over the place."  
  
A thread of golden hair slipped down across her face. "I can't even blame it on my Feral side."  
  
She grumbled.  
  
"I think it's because I'm with Emma."  
  
The look on Adam's face reminded her of all the times he'd solved impossible problems.  
  
It was an expression of insightful comprehension. Something was clicking in his brain. "She's  
  
your best friend and you view me almost as a parent, don't you?"  
  
"I suppose." Shalimar muttered.  
  
He smiled, very softly. "The two of us, together, it's like your losing the only two people  
  
in world you really felt comfortable with."  
  
She looked down at the floor. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess that is it."  
  
"Hey!" Jesse said, stepping into the emotional mess. "What about me? Aren't I a close  
  
and dear friend?"  
  
Shalimar looked to Brennan. He raised an eyebrow. Then, he lay back against the wall,  
  
waiting for her to speak. In his eyes, there was love and hurt. The relationship they had wasn't  
  
as strong as it could be, but he'd believed that she knew he accepted her and that she could tell  
  
him anything. Listening to her, watching her reaction to Adam's psychoanalysis, he knew he'd  
  
been wrong about that.  
  
Before she could answer Brennan, she turned to Jesse. "You are my friend, Jesse. I just  
  
always felt like Emma understood better what I was going through. She has to deal with other  
  
people's emotions in her mind, I have to feel the feline in me, especially now. Sometimes, I'm not  
  
sure if I'm a woman or a house cat. Emma gets that, better than you or Brennan or anyone else  
  
could without being a Feral."  
  
Her eyes went to Adam. "And you. There have been nights I just lay awake in bed,  
  
wishing you were my father. You'd have done a hell of a lot better a job than my real one."  
  
"What about me?" Brennan asked softly. "Do I matter to you?"  
  
Shalimar wasn't entirely comfortable answering that question.  
  
Her heart knew how to answer, but the head was a bit slower to believe the feelings she  
  
had for this man were real. Yet, she couldn't stop herself from saying "you know you matter. I  
  
care about you. A lot. More than I thought I would when we first met."  
  
Brennan smiled and then winced as a searing pain passed through his head. "Okay, I'm  
  
sitting down now." Breathing harder, fighting the need to faint, he looked back up at her. "Not  
  
that this is the best place to say it, but I care too."  
  
"So we all care about each other, then?" Charlotte asked. "That's all great and  
  
everything, but there's just one problem." Standing at the cell door, the color draining from her  
  
face, she was staring out at something in the hallway. Everyone went silent. Slowly, their ears  
  
picked up an unmistakable sound.  
  
Footsteps were drawing close. Not the careful steps of a technician or the stealthy ones of  
  
saviors. This was marching, harsh footfalls striking cold fear in the heart. Precise and measured,  
  
each meeting of floor and boot elicited an image of a firing squad. It was a death march.  
  
Sheckt's killers were coming. Adam's heart grew cold. He realized suddenly that Emma  
  
must be dead. They'd taken her first, now they were here for him and the rest of Mutant X.  
  
"Get ready. When they open that door, we fight. There's a slight chance we can catch  
  
them by surprise." He whispered furiously, hatred for Sheckt burning his soul.  
  
The others could hear the pain in his voice, they realized the same terrible truth.  
  
They got ready.  
  
Better to go down as a team fighting than as prisoners weeping.  
  
Charlotte took a place beside Jesse. They looked at each other. She smiled. "There's  
  
never enough time, is there?" The words spoke volumes. He was chilled by them. They were  
  
the last in her book, words written in a distant darkness now echoed at the twilight of Mutant X.  
  
A brief brush with her fingertips was all the response he allowed himself.  
  
"One last battle, huh?" Brennan muttered as he forced himself to his feet. "At least I  
  
won't have to deal with this headache anymore."  
  
"I'm sorry I was upset Adam. If we make it through this. . . I don't know. Just have hope.  
  
Miracles happen sometimes." Shalimar said, reaching out to take Adam's hand and offer him a  
  
sweet lie. "She's still here. We can't lose her. We can't lose."  
  
Adam drew a deep breath. He gripped her hand so tightly that both winced. Brennan's  
  
hand found her other, matching a desperate fear with equally desperate love. "We can do this."  
  
Behind them, Jesse and Charlotte stood shoulder to shoulder for a moment, then took places on  
  
opposite sides of the others. He beside Brennan, she beside Adam. All five waited, their breath  
  
held deep. If this was going to be their end, they'd go out as a team.  
  
Mutant X lives.  
  
Outside the cell door, someone shouted in alarm. The sound of a weapon clattering to the  
  
floor and of men stomping about as they moved suddenly came to their ears. Scuffling. A man  
  
grunted. Something thumped to the floor. Gunfire. Yelling. A loud clash of metal on metal,  
  
cursing following immediately. The sounds of fast movement and hard blows landed. A woman  
  
snarled something vulgar that ended halfway. Another weapon clattering to the floor.  
  
A man in uniform appeared at the door, a look of panic on his face as he drew a  
  
diminutive walkie-talkie to his lips. "May day, repeat May day! We've got hostiles in the prison  
  
wing! We need backup, now!" He threw the radio away suddenly and raised his rifle to his  
  
shoulder. "Eat this!"  
  
He opened fire but apparently missed, for mere second later, someone drove a powerful  
  
uppercut into his chin. They moved away too fast. The team couldn't see a face. Somewhere  
  
else outside, another thumping noise, probably someone falling.  
  
Then silence.  
  
Stillness.  
  
Someone rushed to the door with clanking keys, unlocked it, and threw it open. They  
  
stood in awe as Emma grinned at them, very much alive, baring only a few bruises. She beamed  
  
at the sight of Adam and rushed into his open arms. Their embrace was powerful enough to blind  
  
them to the world and reason. "I thought you were dead. Emma, I thought you were dead."  
  
Adam said through tears of joy.  
  
"They put a subdermal governor on me." She replied, stepping back to meet his eyes.  
  
"You're hurt." Her gentle hand upon his face made him breathless.  
  
"Now that you're here, I'm fine." Adam leaned in and kissed her, in front of everyone.  
  
She gave no resistance and met his lips with equal desire.  
  
When they separated, Devon appeared at the cell door, a newly acquired rifle in hand.  
  
"Come on! We've got to move fast! Katherine said she'd jam their sensors but she wasn't sure  
  
how much time we'd have." He spun this way and that, nervously watching for any approaching  
  
guards. "If we're lucky, they might not realize we're dead. They might think that gunfire was us  
  
dying. Katherine gave us a map of the base, we know how to get out. Follow us."  
  
"You mean she's good?" Charlotte screamed in open mouthed surprise. Turning to  
  
Jesse, she said "is everyone insane or just me?"  
  
Grinning, helping Brennan to move fast out the door, Shalimar laughed. "Who cares, as  
  
long as we're free! Let's get out of this nightmare." She jogged past, her man's arm over her  
  
shoulders. Everyone followed them, each hoping the good fortune would hold out long enough  
  
to escape the deadly clutches of Aaron Sheckt and his army of terrorists.  
  
Running on his own, though his leg sent needles of fire into his heart, Adam was between  
  
Emma and Devon. He looked to the man as he pointed down corridors. The Frost Lake base  
  
might have been enormous, but it wouldn't take long to reach a way out. "Where's Katherine?  
  
How is she a part of all this?" He asked, the question burning in his mind just ahead of a need to  
  
know where to find the keys to his team's subdermal governors. A thought occurred to him  
  
before Devon could answer. "Katherine's in an intelligence service, isn't she?"  
  
"Classified top agent of the CIA. She's working under a woman named Christina. I just  
  
found out." Devon said between gasps of breath. He wasn't much for running. "She infiltrated  
  
Sheckt's organization to bring it down. It wasn't until tonight that she knew the location of this  
  
base. She couldn't contact her handlers without blowing her cover."  
  
Emma was pulling slightly ahead of the men. "She gave us a heart attack fooling a hidden  
  
surveillance system in our cell. I thought we were dead for sure. Katherine saved us. But we've  
  
got to get out, now, before it's too late."  
  
"Too late for what?" Shalimar called from just behind them.  
  
Devon glanced back as they turned a corner. "A loose end to tie up. Something  
  
personal." The look on his face showed it was something very serious. "She's going to retire  
  
Duncan. You know what that means."  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
Katherine Bowden sat at the desk, her hands folded neatly in her lap, while Duncan Ladd  
  
spoke with his master, Aaron M. Sheckt. It seemed she'd waited through a thousand such  
  
conferences, yet the mystery man's face remained just that, a mystery. In all the time Katherine  
  
had worked at Frost Lake, she'd never once seen or heard Aaron Sheckt, not even in the most  
  
limited capacity. His orders were always relayed through his liaison or the computer localized  
  
computer network.  
  
Part of her believed him to be a fabrication on Duncan's part, a bogeyman he used to  
  
frighten subordinates into line, a mask he hid his own orders and mistakes behind. The mysterious  
  
leader he'd blame for everything if ever caught by law enforcement. Just an insubstantial fairy  
  
tale, no more harmful than a nightmare.  
  
That was her wishful and childish side.  
  
The rational part of Katherine's soul knew better. Sheckt was real. Ladd was afraid of  
  
him, which made her ceratin that she never wanted to meet the big man himself. A man like  
  
Duncan, a man who brutalized and tortured without any emotional display aside from glee, did  
  
not scare easy. What kind of a man could terrorize a terrorist? The question kept at her and  
  
gnawed at her resolve and cool.  
  
Especially now.  
  
Sheckt had locked down the base and she was certain he'd left.  
  
The devil was going home to hell, abandoning his demons to purgatory.  
  
Duncan came out of an office, a strange look on his face. His peremptory order was  
  
simple. "Turn on the news." Katherine followed it quickly, activating the nearest computer and  
  
calling up a national channel.  
  
A very young looking woman was smiling at them. "Authorities are not saying at this time  
  
if the incident is connected to this morning's raid on the Clark warehouse. To recap, there are six  
  
confirmed dead, two of them police officers, in a brutal massacre. The place where it happened  
  
was nothing more threatening than an apartment house, which has led local law enforcement to  
  
believe this was another act of domestic terrorism. Our sources inside the federal government  
  
have informed us that there are several leads."  
  
"CIA counter terrorism efforts in the U.S. have been particularly successful as of late.  
  
Expectations are high that the current situation will be resolved swiftly and effectively. A  
  
government source sites Director Christina Bergl especially, for her brilliance in handling a rash of  
  
unusual events. Though we stand now watching the world explode, our hopes and prayers are  
  
with you Christina, and the President. Brings us through safe. This is Eve Frost, anchor and  
  
American, signing off."  
  
The screen went blank for a moment then switched to another story with a different  
  
anchor, this time a man who looked old enough for the job. It didn't matter, Katherine already  
  
knew that she'd seen what Sheckt had wanted seen.  
  
The woman had been talking about the operation Simon and Duncan had undertaken.  
  
She'd been talking about the safe house where Charlotte Cooke was nearly captured. If Ms.  
  
Frost had known who those people were who'd died, would she still have reported it calmly?  
  
Would she have celebrated or wept to know that mutants were dead?  
  
"That's why we're having a review. He's not pleased."  
  
A chill ran through Katherine's body, but she tried to hide it with an unconcerned shrug.  
  
"What's there not to be pleased about? We've captured Mutant X, haven't we? Isn't that idiot  
  
husband of mine already on his way to captivity?" She shook her head, the thick strands like silk  
  
against her bare shoulders. The lie sounded unconvincing as she spoke it, but Duncan seemed  
  
too unsettled to be thinking clearly. "What's his plan?"  
  
Duncan sighed and sat down near here, rubbing his face with his hands. "I don't know  
  
what he's planning now. That is my primary worry." For a time, he kept palms pressed to  
  
countenance. Then, quite suddenly, he stared at her, eyes burrowing deep. "Why did you turn  
  
on your husband?"  
  
Katherine smiled, her lips sliding back from perfect teeth that shimmered in the light from  
  
the overheads. "That's none of your business." She said calmly, trying not to feel her heart  
  
suddenly start racing.  
  
Something utterly inhuman entered Ladd's eyes. "I could kill you. Make it last for  
  
months. It'd be worse than anything Simon could concoct." He cocked his head to one side and  
  
regarded Katherine with that dark stare. "But I don't suppose that would bother you. You've  
  
got ice water in your arteries. When you finally go, I expect hell's famed river of eternal fire to  
  
freeze." He sat back and folded his hands together. "Sheckt feels that our status as a covert  
  
agency has been compromised. He feels your plan has created an unnecessary risk of discovery.  
  
That's why he wants a review. No one leaves the base until he's certain it's still secret."  
  
Several strands of blonde hair had fallen across her face. Katherine reached up and  
  
slowly brushed them back, then combed fingers through the rest, drawing it all into a pony tail  
  
then letting it fall straight again. Delaying tactics.  
  
She smiled and stretched slightly, as if her muscles were growing tired from sitting. "I  
  
betrayed Devon because I was bored. I joined the organization because you told me I'd make a  
  
lot of money and get to kill people for fun." Her hand rubbed at her right shoulder, as if an aching  
  
muscle there was bothering her.  
  
Duncan's face turned darker. He could tell she wasn't being honest with him. For the  
  
first time since he'd recruited her, she was letting him hear the hatred and contempt she felt for  
  
him. It was white-hot fury. "You don't like me very much do you?"  
  
"No. I think you're the worst human being I know."  
  
"I'm a new mutant. I'm better than human."  
  
"That's a matter of opinion." Katherine kept her right hand on her shoulder. There was  
  
no muscle ache, but there was a shoulder holster that was too cleverly concealed for even a  
  
trained lunatic like Duncan to see. "So, is Sheckt a mutant?"  
  
"No. Yes. Who cares?" Duncan's lips curled into an expression more sneer than smile.  
  
"You've always asked a lot of questions. I don't know why I never noticed that before now."  
  
"I'm inquisitive. Also overly curious." She smiled, hoping to keep him thinking he had  
  
the upper hand. "Here's a question. Where's Sheckt gone to? Another one of your bases?"  
  
Duncan shook his head. "Beautiful but not very bright. Mr. Sheckt doesn't trust me with  
  
all of his secrets. Most people that ask so many questions, I kill. I'm surprised by the faith I've  
  
shown you."  
  
Her fingers brushed the weapon's small handle.  
  
"I was surprised too. Maybe it has to do with my blonde good looks and hot body."  
  
He laughed.  
  
Katherine drew her pistol and shot him seven times.  
  
"Or maybe you're just stupid."  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
At first, it was all darkness. Then, the first rays of light pierced the thick haze of Gabriel  
  
Ashlocke's sleep. He squinted and tried to raise a hand to shield his face. In trying, he learned  
  
that his arms were strapped down, thick leather restraints wrapped around bedside balustrades.  
  
At first glance, he thought he'd been taken to a hospital, perhaps even the one where he'd  
  
happily killed Dr. Clark.  
  
Before clear thinking could banish such a ridiculous thought, someone stepped into Gabriel's  
  
line of vision. She wore a lab coat. She knelt close to him and started checking his vitals. "Did  
  
you sleep well, Mr. Ashlocke? I'm surprise the sedative we gave you lasted this long. Perhaps  
  
you're too far gone to save."  
  
He tried to speak but could manage only a barely coherent grumble.  
  
"Don't strain yourself. The drugs are very dehydrating. Your body needs fluids, preferably  
  
water. It may also take you some time to adjust to being powerless." The woman, by her voice  
  
the doctor from before, Guevara, gently lifted his head and eased a cup of water to his lips.  
  
"Procedurally speaking, I should be offering you ice chips from that carafe on the end table." She  
  
helped Gabriel take a very small sip and waited for him to swallow. He choked slightly but was  
  
able to drink the rest of the cup without incident.  
  
"There now. I knew you could do it." Dr. Guevara smiled gently. "World's most  
  
powerful mutant, the Patient Zero who started it all. I figured you could drink something without  
  
dying on me."  
  
"Where?" Gabriel asked, his voice sounded lazy and vaguely stupid to his ears.  
  
He hated it. The weakness.  
  
"You're being held captive by the Society of Supremacy. The where isn't important, even  
  
if you think it is." The doctor turned away from him and started toward a nearby door. "Besides,  
  
there's someone here who wants to see you."  
  
As the lovely doctor turned away, her movement colored by a taste for sensual Spanish  
  
dances, she gestured toward a man standing guard at the door. He nodded and opened it,  
  
allowing Kelly to enter. The blonde was wearing a black T-shirt and tight jeans. Her face  
  
sparked with life at the sight of Gabriel.  
  
"Are you okay?" She asked, stepping closer. "I was so afraid that you weren't going to  
  
make it. When I woke up, they had to restrain me for a while before I was convinced they hadn't  
  
hurt you. Dr. Guevara is a very persuasive woman."  
  
Kelly walked calmly to Gabriel's bedside and reached through the side bars to take his  
  
hand. "She said Clark gave you a drug cocktail. Part of it started paralyzing your heart. If it  
  
weren't for her and the others, well, they say you'd be dead. I tried explaining that all you really  
  
needed was time to heal. You're a god and god's don't die."  
  
As much as he wanted to affirm her words, Gabriel didn't feel particularly godlike at that  
  
moment. More like an insignificant piece of garbage. Instead, he squeezed her hand reassuringly  
  
and forced a smile to his lips. His empty eyes watched a tear slide down her cheek. He glanced  
  
toward Dr. Guevara, who stood just a few feet from the door, as if worried that they might try to  
  
escape. He was flattered by her fear.  
  
"What's the verdict doctor?" Gabriel croaked, using most of his strength for just that one  
  
question. His chest ached. There was blackness at the edges, a tunnel around all he saw. He  
  
wondered if those symptoms weren't answer enough.  
  
Dr. Guevara stepped forward, a dark smile coming to her lips. "That is an interesting  
  
question Mr. Ashlocke. In all honesty, my actions have done little. I've delayed death but I can't  
  
remove you from the Reaper's list." She stepped forward, moving with a dancer's certainty of  
  
stride. "However, I am not your last hope. Our leader will be here soon. You're fate, ultimately,  
  
resides with her."  
  
"Mine too." Kelly said quietly, twisting her neck around for him to see the subdermal  
  
governor there. "We're prisoners. The Society holds all the cards." She leaned down close to  
  
kiss Gabriel's cheek, then whispered into his ear. "For now."  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
"Move it, damn you, move!"  
  
"Geez, lady, you're gonna leave me deaf yelling like that. Stop barking and park it, will  
  
you?" The cab driver shook his head in annoyance. "This is absolutely the last time I let that  
  
cockamamie station of your's talk me into driving around the city with a crazed reporter  
  
screaming in my ear. I don't care how much loot they throw."  
  
"Shut up and drive! So help me God, if I miss this story, I'll sue your worthless ass from  
  
here to the gates of heaven. I don't care if you have to run over every brain dead senior citizen  
  
from here to Miami, just get me to the story!"  
  
"Okay, okay, okay. Just relax, alright?"  
  
"And for your information, I'm an anchorwoman. Not a reporter."  
  
The cab driver glanced at the young woman in his back seat. "Um, there's a difference?"  
  
He asked before realizing that his question was all to likely to trigger another explosion.  
  
Sprawled on the seat, taking up all the room stretched from one end to the other, Eve  
  
Frost glared at her driver. She twisted and sat up straight, leaned forward, and hissed through the  
  
grated metal mesh separating them. "Hell, yes, there's a difference. About twenty thousand  
  
differences. Not to mention benefits, plenty of face time, and the power to ruthlessly bitch and  
  
order big, strong, men around. Like you, for instance."  
  
Sighing, Eve flopped back and dramatically crossed her legs, flashing just enough skin  
  
with her tight miniskirt to almost cause the cab driver to crash. Her beautiful smile showed how  
  
she took the implicit complement. "Assuming we get there in time, I'll apologize for the major  
  
bitch attitude. I'm always psycho in situations like this. That's why the station uses a cab for me."  
  
She laughed girlishly, almost giggling. "There's that and the fact that every cameraman I've  
  
worked with for any real length of time has quit. They try to minimize contact now."  
  
"You schizophrenic or something?"  
  
She blinked in surprise. "Excuse me? How do you mean?"  
  
The cab driver shook his head, careful to keep his eyes on the road as he raced along.  
  
"One second you're screaming like a banshee, next you're flirting with me!"  
  
Eve leaned forward, letting the tight blouse she wore pull even tighter against her petite  
  
frame and small breasts. "I'm getting in character. People don't tune in to watch the news, they  
  
tune in to watch me tell them the news. That requires a certain charm. It's all about seduction. If  
  
the viewers don't love you, they vote you off the island and have you jump a shark. You get it?"  
  
"Yeah, sure." He made a sharp turn, causing the wheels to screech in anger. "So, that  
  
means you're not interested?"  
  
"Get me to Jacob's Memorial Hospital before any other networks get people out there to  
  
cover the fire, maybe I'll buy you dinner."  
  
"Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? Man buys dinner, woman eats?"  
  
Another laugh, this time sounding a bit more her true age. "If I wanted chivalry, dear man,  
  
I'd have never left my hometown. Girl like me, proud of her accomplishments, likes to show  
  
off in subtle ways. Now, stop fantasizing, watch the road, get me where I'm going, and maybe  
  
there'll be a reward in it for you."  
  
The cab driver shut up and drove like a madman. It was possible he reached the hospital  
  
without breaking any of the laws of physics, but not very likely. They arrived a full minute ahead  
  
of the camera crew in route, which should have arrived first. The moment the other vehicle pulled  
  
up beside the taxi, before it even stopped moving, two men leapt out with large cameras while a  
  
third inside switched on a transmission satellite relay on the van's roof.  
  
All around the hospital, doctors and patients were milling about. The patients wore light  
  
blue robes that billowed about their bodies, reminding Eve of wings. Some were strapped onto  
  
rolling carts with portable machines all around them. A few just stood, transfixed by the dancing  
  
flames and the snarling heat. Men and women in white coats went from person to person, trying  
  
to make sure that everyone was accounted for and alive. Children from the pediatric ward  
  
huddled together on the grassy lawn, too sick or too afraid to do anything else.  
  
All of this would act as a backdrop for the newscast. As the camera crew finished setting  
  
up, she glanced back at it all. So much destruction everyday, so much that she told the world  
  
about, it always left her feeling sick.  
  
Not that she ever let the audience see it.  
  
'Hell,' Eve thought, 'I barely let myself feel it.'  
  
The lead man pointed at her. "Going live in ten, Eve. Put on your game face."  
  
She nodded, turning her attentions from the enormous raging inferno behind her. "Lord, I  
  
hope they can get everyone out."  
  
"Are you nuts?" One of the camera guys asked in a tone of stunned horror. "Do you  
  
have any idea how many more people will watch if we've got live footage of someone toasting  
  
their marshmallows? Better than sweeps!"  
  
"I'll pretend you said something witty and empathetic." Eve watched for her cue. It  
  
seemed to take a long time for the last second to hit. When the man pointed, she brought forth  
  
her best smile. "This is Eve Frost. In a day filled with dark events and mysterious ties of blood  
  
binding them, another tragedy is unfolding. Behind me is Jacob's Memorial Hospital, earlier today  
  
the site of a brutal murder. With the passing of Dr. David Clark, fire claims this place, just as it  
  
consumed his mansion, his daughter, and his warehouse." She raised her hand and gestured  
  
toward the building as flames poured out from almost every window, the sounds of snapping  
  
beams and exploding glass ringing into the night. "Is this another terrorist attack in our fair city?  
  
Is there a conspiracy to destroy anything and everything touched by Dr. Clark? Does any of this  
  
have anything to do with the growing reports worldwide of premonitions and strange  
  
occurrences, all linked by a common time and date of exactly two weeks ago?"  
  
Eve shrugged. The gesture was simple, realistic, and done with just enough sensual  
  
movement to leave her male viewers a tad tingly. "We may never know the answers to these  
  
questions. Yet, I am confident that our brave men and women in uniform will do their best for all  
  
of us. I'm Eve Frost, and we will continue to bring you updates as events occur."  
  
The lead cameraman jerked a hand across his throat. "That's it for now, babe. We'll get  
  
some footage of Fire and Rescue when they get here. They're probably trapped in that jam back  
  
across town."  
  
"Hey, that was sweet putting that bit in about them. You're going to get some great  
  
thank-you notes for the station." The other cameraman said. He was the one who'd made the  
  
comment about people burning to death. Marshmallows.  
  
She threw her hands up in the air and turned back toward the taxi she'd arrived in. The  
  
driver was standing outside, watching spellbound as flames danced higher and higher, spinning  
  
and twirling toward heaven. She smiled sweetly and ran a hand through her auburn locks,  
  
breathing deep the scent of hospital smoke. It seemed cleaner, more antiseptic, than other  
  
smoke, but that was probably just a bizarre quirk of her imagination.  
  
As the sound of sirens filled her ears, Eve turned back to face her camera crew and to  
  
watch flashing red lights winking in the distance. Traffic jam or not, they were arriving. "Maybe  
  
they'll even save the building." Eve muttered to herself, "not that anyone will appreciate them if  
  
they do. Hmm, I should talk to someone about doing a special. Might be a real ratings booster.  
  
Not that 'burning hospital where mystery killer offs renowned doctor' isn't."  
  
She glanced back at the inferno. Perhaps because she was already in a thoughtful mood,  
  
Eve found herself entranced. Sparks gently rose as the wind pulsed by, heat radiated out like  
  
comfortingly, like a grand old fireplace. It struck her, even with the doctors and frightened  
  
patients milling about, how beautiful it all was.  
  
"Hey! Hey, here comes the hose brigade Eve! We're going live so give us some poetry  
  
gorgeous and see if we can't get a few extra Nielsens."  
  
She sighed deeply. "Back on the clock."  
  
With the cameras turned on the street, and all eyes on the fire trucks arriving, it passed  
  
unseen and soundless from the rear parking garage of Jacob's Memorial Hospital. The black  
  
limousine, baring no mark, reached asphalt and gently eased away, sleek as a serpent. Only after  
  
it had disappeared, did the cameras turn back toward the building.  
  
Eve would never know, nor would her crew, that one of the biggest stories in history had  
  
left them without even a whisper.  
  
In the back seat, sitting much the way Eve had in the taxi, that story would remain unknown  
  
and secret for several more months.  
  
Then would come storm.  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
"In here." Devon said as the team came to a door marked with strange symbols. "This is  
  
where Katherine said they keep all their spare equipment. There should be a key to your  
  
governors. I think."  
  
Brennan laughed, then winced in pain and leaned hard on Shalimar. "Hey, we weren't  
  
expecting to live through the last thirty minutes. Key or no key, we'll be fine, so long as we have  
  
a way out." He needed a moment to catch his breath. His entire body felt like one gigantic  
  
bruise. Every breath drawn made him grit teeth and groan inwardly. "When we get home, I'm  
  
sleeping for a month of Sundays. Man my head hurts."  
  
"Any chance there's an infirmary near here?" Adam asked calmly, meeting Shalimar's  
  
concerned eyes with a reassuring nod. He felt Emma's hand in his and acknowledged her  
  
support with a gentle squeeze. His own body could use first aid, six weeks vacation, and some  
  
time to let his heart calm it's pounding. Until Emma was safe, until they were all safe, Adam  
  
couldn't rest. For the moment, he thought Brennan might need treatment.  
  
"Yeah. There's one back the way we came. Katherine's going to meet us here, though.  
  
And your governors." He bent over and took in a breath. "Sorry, I'm not in the best of shape.  
  
Most of my work the last few years involved stakeouts in a car with boxes of doughnuts."  
  
"Adam, if we lose the element of surprise, we're dead. We can't fight these people  
  
without our powers." Jesse said as he stepped to the storage room door. "I vote to get these  
  
governors off first. If we can't fight back, there's no reason for any one of us to get patched up.  
  
They'll just break us again."  
  
"He's right." Brennan said quietly. "I'll keep. Get the key. It's just a headache. I'm fine,  
  
really. No problems. Just like after that whole thing with those Russians and that gun of theirs.  
  
Really, just ignore me."  
  
Jesse raised an eyebrow. "You know, maybe we should check him out. He almost died  
  
after being hit by the Pushka."  
  
"It's just been one of those days. I mean, I learn the secrets of Adam and Emma's love life  
  
and get repeatedly beaten senseless, and taken prisoner. Just one of those days."  
  
His face was slightly pale when he spoke.  
  
Brennan gave them a thumb's up, leaning on Shalimar though he was, and smiled warmly.  
  
"Things have been rough. I'm going to have the battle scars to prove it, but I'm still ready for  
  
action. You can count on me." He staggered ever so slightly, invalidating his words.  
  
Ignoring Brennan's continued reassurances, and with Adam's help, Shalimar eased him to  
  
the ground. "Rest here." She said softly, her hand on his chest. She glanced over at her leader.  
  
Adam gave her an encouraging nod then rose to help Devon and Jesse open the storage room  
  
door. Unfortunately, Katherine hadn't known the code for the electronic lock.  
  
Emma knelt down beside Shalimar. "How is he?"  
  
"Better than I should be." Brennan muttered, vaguely annoyed yet oddly enjoying the  
  
attention. "With all the bashing my brain's taken, I count myself lucky to not be drooling on your  
  
shoes." He tried a smile. It seemed out of place given his haggard expression.  
  
"Shh, save your strength. Maybe you're okay but maybe not. Either way, you've earned a  
  
little rest." Shalimar whispered before leaning down and kissing his cheek. She seemed surprised  
  
by the gesture, then just pleased.  
  
He stared up at her. "Guess you're feeling better, huh? Not so upset?"  
  
Emma turned to Shalimar, a concerned glint in her eyes. "What happened to you? I thought  
  
your injuries were mostly superficial."  
  
"They are. Just a few bruises and cuts. Bloodied me up, but they didn't manage to break  
  
anything important. I'm pretty hardheaded. About a lot of things." The blonde sighed, wishing  
  
she could run from this conversation but deciding it was better to get it over with now. "Adam  
  
told us about the two of you." She paused. "Not that we wouldn't have figured it out after the  
  
way you kissed him during the rescue. Anyway, I didn't take the news very well. . . I was being a  
  
real idiot."  
  
"Hey, it's okay." Emma said quietly, though she wasn't sure it was. Her friend needed  
  
comforting right then. "I didn't think any of you would take this well. That's why I swore Adam  
  
to secrecy. I guess he had to tell you since I blabbed to Brennan."  
  
"How is he?"  
  
The two women turned around, faintly surprised to find another woman behind them.  
  
Charlotte was leaning down toward them, her eyes on Brennan. For a moment, they stared, not  
  
certain how to answer or even if they should. "Last time we met, you weren't exactly our best  
  
friend. How did you get to be part of this anyway?" Emma asked, her mind flashing back to the  
  
first time she met Charlotte Cooke and got clobbered by a flowerpot, then nearly given a  
  
lobotomy by the man she was now sleeping with.  
  
Until now, Emma hadn't realized just how strange that sounded.  
  
"I called Jesse for help." Charlotte said as Emma thought about evil Adam and how worried  
  
she'd been that he wouldn't come back from being turned dark. "How's Brennan doing? He's  
  
got this really horrible bump on his head."  
  
"He says he's fine." Shalimar said. She moved over a bit to make room and Charlotte  
  
knelt down, squeezing in between the other two women. "I think we should check him out just to  
  
be sure."  
  
Staring up from the floor, Brennan rolled his eyes and muttered something about being  
  
"treated like an idiot child." All three women checked him for injuries again, hoping to find  
  
something visible and tangible to worry about. By all outward appearances, there was nothing  
  
seriously wrong with their teammate. No one in the group needed reminding about how  
  
deceiving appearances could be.  
  
"I have the unlocking code." Adam said triumphantly, breaking everyone's chains of  
  
worry. "It's a nine digit number. Pretty simple though. Jesse, key this sequence: one, three, one,  
  
one, nine, one, five, one and four. That should deactivate the system."  
  
Jesse plugged in the numbers and the door opened. With a grin, he turned on the light and  
  
started searching for a governor key.  
  
"How did you get that?" Devon asked, his voice filled with awe.  
  
A blush came to Adam's face. "It's posted on that memo board." He pointed over  
  
Devon's shoulder at a push pin cork board someone had set up a few feet from the storage room  
  
door. He smiled. "Maybe it's not a genius solution, but it will do."  
  
"Found one!" Jesse yelled, running out of the room with a strange looking device designed  
  
to deactivate governors. He handed it to Adam. "Here, get this damn thing off of me. Sheckt's  
  
people aren't going to be unaware of us forever."  
  
"Just a second." Adam slipped the key into an almost imperceptible slot near the skin,  
  
twisted, and was rewarded handsomely. With a click, Jesse's governor fell off.  
  
Gunshots rang out from down a hallway. Katherine appeared, fired a round behind her,  
  
then strode to them. "Company's coming. We've got big problems."  
  
Jesse tested his powers by going intangible. They worked perfectly. He breathed out and  
  
became solid. "No problem. I can shield us from the worst of it. Plus, if we run into a locked  
  
door, I can get us through the wall instead." He smiled at Katherine, obviously waiting for her to  
  
say something.  
  
"Sorry I beat the crap out of you. Nothing personal and all that cliched bull. Now, cover  
  
me with that rock power of your's so I can blow our friends to hell." She didn't wait for a reply.  
  
Jesse had to run to keep up with her as she returned to the fight.  
  
Adam turned to the others, quickly removing the subdermal governors from Emma,  
  
Shalimar and Brennan. "Thanks, I was starting to have flashbacks to my vacation at Genomex.  
  
Four star service if you like torture and pain." Brennan muttered as he allowed Shalimar to cradle  
  
his head. Although he felt relatively okay, the pain in his head was getting worse by the moment.  
  
"Devon, you said there was an infirmary back the way we came?" Adam asked as he bent  
  
down to check his ailing friend. "Think you could lead us there?"  
  
"Katherine gave me and Emma a map of the entire base, remember? I could lead you to  
  
where they do the alien autopsies. The infirmary's straight back and to the left. Here, I'll lead the  
  
way." Devon started moving while Shalimar and Emma lifted Brennan up between them.  
  
The former thief rolled his eyes. "How many times do I have to say it, ladies. I'm perfectly  
  
okay. Seriously." He grimaced suddenly and brought a hand to his forehead. "Except for the  
  
worst migraine in recorded history."  
  
"Oh, let them fawn over you." Charlotte Cooke said as she followed close behind the  
  
others. "Doesn't it feel nice to be the center of attention with two woman carrying you and a  
  
gorgeous brunette talking your ear off?"  
  
Brennan laughed. "I like your style."  
  
The infirmary loomed as they turned a corner. Devon triumphantly reached for the door.  
  
Before his fingers even touched the handle, the ground beneath his feet shuddered violently,  
  
throwing all of them off balance.  
  
"What's going—" Charlotte's question was cut short by a rush of sound.  
  
The world exploded.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
*****************************END OF PART SIX**************************** 


	7. The Price

Part Seven  
  
The Price  
  
  
  
  
  
Blades dancing, keening the air with razor edges, the helicopter settled. Thick clouds of  
  
dust were heaved upwards by it's breath. Like a living thing, it grumbled as it's landing struts  
  
bumped down. Rotors slowed. The tail quivered. On either side, mounted to insignificant wings,  
  
twin Gatling guns glinted with reflected light. At the center of a vast sand plain, the landing pad  
  
seemed a nest, lacking only the bleached bones of past victims.  
  
The machine drew to a silent stillness so complete, those watching from hidden security  
  
barracks wondered briefly if it were truly real or just a mirage. Heat shimmers made them more  
  
uncertain. Desert tricks fooled the wise and the laughable with equal ease.  
  
When a side hatch slid open and the man in black stepped out, all doubt vanished. No  
  
mirage could have carried him. Save perhaps one born from hell.  
  
He stood, eyes grown weary from travel and lips pursed as he surveyed the area. Nothing  
  
caught his attention, though he knew where every secret lay waiting. All seemed perfectly  
  
natural. A man of infinite desert knowledge might have seen through the carefully crafted illusion,  
  
but such people were few and far between.  
  
He smiled and turned back, reaching out to take the hand of his pilot at the exact instant it  
  
was offered. "The hour, my Lena, is it as late as I believe?"  
  
Firmly grasping his hand, she smiled, ever so faintly. Her Feral genetics made such  
  
expressions rarer than they might have been. "Yes, Mr. Sheckt. The Scorched Earth protocols  
  
have by now initiated. The Frost Lake facility should be fully cauterized within ten minutes of  
  
initial blasts." She stepped down from the helicopter, carefully setting her heavy booted feet on  
  
the landing pad, as graceful as any other charmed serpent.  
  
"Shame we couldn't stay to watch." He spoke with a coolness of tone that belied his true  
  
disappointment. "Yes, a pity."  
  
"You're too important to risk on such things. We need you, especially now. With our  
  
enemies gone, along with all those who might have sought to reclaim power, the world is ripe for  
  
your vision to reshape it." Lena Isley spoke gently, dully, her words carrying subtle emotion.  
  
Only when she met his eyes, did some hint of her affection come into her speech. "The games  
  
have only just begun, my leader."  
  
Touching her face softly, his smile was slow in appearing but honest. "I was lost before  
  
you. My goals were but the echos of my fractured memory. Without your help, my attentions  
  
might never have fallen on Adam Kane." He leaned close. His lips brushed hers. The biting  
  
desert night lost it's chill cruelty. "With Mutant X out of the way, and your own betrayers gone  
  
to dust, we can focus at last. . . upon the future."  
  
Lena bowed her head very faintly, not sure if she wanted him to see in her eyes the  
  
glimmer of happiness he'd sparked. "I lost friends because some at the GSA were too weak to  
  
honor their loyalties. That can't compare to what Adam robbed you of."  
  
At her words, he nodded, acknowledging that truth but then asking, "yet, it tasted sweet  
  
did it not, the revenge I wrought on your behalf? My assassinations of Dr. Kenneth Harrison and  
  
that traitorous agent Morgan Fortier under Ashlocke's nose?" There was no mistaking her shiver  
  
of pleasure at the mere memory of it. Their eyes met again as sandy winds billowed all around.  
  
Though his smile was slight, the trace blush of skin and glint of eye were proof of affection deep.  
  
He turned from her reluctantly and gestured.  
  
In response, a man rose from under a carefully concealed entrance. He wore a uniform  
  
similar to, but vastly different from, that which adorned members of the United States Army. He  
  
held a heavy leather tarpaulin over his head, despite its great weight, unconcerned by the drifts of  
  
sand that fell over him. "This way sir." The man said.  
  
Touching Lena's face, he turned toward the entrance. A shiver ran through the core of his  
  
being. Night had descended, bringing an icy unwelcome tranquility. "Come, we must get out of  
  
this dreadful cold. No fun to achieve victory only to freeze to death in a desert."  
  
"It would, however, be a disturbingly humorous way to go. At the least, the irony would  
  
be perfect." Lena whispered as she followed him.  
  
Once inside, the man lowered the covering and proceeded to use a small hand vac to clear  
  
away all traces of sand. Some drifted steadily deeper into the hidden base. The hallway  
  
extended as far as could be seen, slowly curving downward. Silvery metal gleamed everywhere.  
  
A control panel with a speaker was mounted on a wall near the door.  
  
Inside, the air tasted wrong. It was recycled but held the faintest trace of staleness, a  
  
musky taint that could not be completely erased. Carefully placed and aesthetically designed air  
  
ducts hummed as they blew gentle gusts into the hallway.  
  
A black sign read "No Surrender: Death First."  
  
Everything inside the base was warm. Not unpleasantly so, just enough to cut the chill  
  
from the bones and leave new arrivals feeling welcome. Standing close to her leader's side, Lena  
  
still shivered. Reptilian DNA ensured she was strong, fast, able to climb walls, spray venom and  
  
in possession of a second pair of eyelids; it did not help her keep warm. Especially not now,  
  
when her mutation had grown stronger, turning her blood slightly cool.  
  
Sensing the lingering discomfort, he placed an arm across her shoulders. He said not a  
  
word, yet she began walking with him, matching stride for stride, without even thinking. They  
  
moved deeper. The corridor twisted in on itself.  
  
Into the spiral of descent, they tossed no words, their lips seemingly sealed.  
  
They reached a flat level area after walking for some time. Two men with Ingram machine  
  
pistols strapped to their belts stood guard with M16's in hand. Their eyes were dead like those  
  
of piranha fish. A third man sat at a metal desk welded to the floor's metal plates. He wore a  
  
uniform of desert camouflage, saffron helmet, and an Ingram in a holster. Two 9mm Glock  
  
handguns peaked out of a piratical bandolier that crisscrossed his chest.  
  
The man at the desk held out his hand while the other two aimed their weapons. "Papers."  
  
He commanded roughly.  
  
Lena carefully withdrew her identification card and a mission order slip from her clothes.  
  
Unlike this man, she wore a plain flight vest over an ordinary red dress. She glanced sideways at  
  
her leader, a ghost's smirk on her lips.  
  
After studying the card and orders for a few moments, the guard rose from his desk and  
  
handed them back. He bowed his head. "Forgive my abruptness, Mr. Sheckt, Ms. Isley, but we  
  
must be careful."  
  
"You do not wish to verify my identity?"  
  
The guard jerked at the question. "No, no, no sir! How could anyone dare to try to  
  
impersonate you? Outside of this base, only Duncan Ladd knew your face. You're appearance  
  
here would seem to indicate that he is no longer of any concern." The man saluted. "Welcome  
  
back to Haven sir."  
  
He nodded toward the man and proceeded past the checkpoint. Out of earshot, he turned  
  
to Lena. "He is to be reminded of our many enemies and their talents for doing impossible things.  
  
One can't win the game if one doesn't anticipate every move and countermove. Even with dear  
  
Mutant X's demise, we still tread a razor's edge."  
  
"Some might even say we dance upon that edge." Lena said, turning with her leader  
  
down a corridor. A glance toward him did not seem to show a man who'd just won a major  
  
victory. "Mr. Sheckt, is something wrong? You've been unusually edgy tonight."  
  
He glanced at her for a moment, briefly finding his mind curiously blank, much as his dear  
  
associate's was after encountering Marc Griffin, a new mutant with eyes that stole memories.  
  
Rather than being surprised by this, he merely sighed and concentrated until his thoughts  
  
reformed. Recollection came quickly, for which he was thankful.  
  
"I have begun to reconsider my actions. Trusting in such a labyrinthian plot to destroy  
  
Adam Kane and his band of merry mutants. . . I worry. Had I fired the fatal shots or denoted the  
  
bombs in person, perhaps I would not now be plagued by self-doubt. But what is, is."  
  
"You've won."  
  
He stopped. A door at his right opened and a doctor stepped out. "Right this way sir,  
  
we've prepared the serum." He followed with Lena at his side, her eyes still upon him.  
  
"You have won, Mr. Sheckt. It is over. Mutant X was locked in a cell, afflicted with  
  
subdermal governors, a firing squad should have killed them before the bombs but, even if they  
  
managed to escape that cell, the base was sealed. They would have had to find a way to remove  
  
their governors, reach an outer wall, then use Kilmartin's powers for an escape." She shook her  
  
head, "I highly doubt even they could have managed such a feat without help from the inside." A  
  
dark smile brightened her face. "At least, not before the bombs got them."  
  
He was comforted by her words but had no time to fully consider them.  
  
The exam was beginning.  
  
He sat upon a typical hospital bed and held out an arm. The doctor rolled up his sleeve  
  
and strapped a pressure cuff above his elbow. Five hard presses later, a nurse began swabbing a  
  
putrid orange substance over a vein; iodine to ward off infection. "We'll need to draw a blood  
  
sample first. Nothing to be alarmed about of course, just a routine thing." The doctor retrieved a  
  
mechanism from a nearby table that resembled slightly the devices used at blood drives. "Now,  
  
this shouldn't hurt much."  
  
He plunged the hollow needle into his patient's vein rather painfully and drew five vials of  
  
sanguine wine. "There now, not too bad, eh sir? Renee, bring me a hypodermic, please." The  
  
nurse opened a cabinet as another of her kind took the vampire device and test tubes. A glass  
  
bottle rested in front of the doctor. Once he had a needle in hand, he drew seventy-five CC of  
  
the fluid within and quickly injected it into his patient.  
  
"That's all for now sir. I'll make sure to have the test results on your desk by tomorrow,  
  
along with my report on the new subdermal governor my people have been working on. The new  
  
device will be much more effective against unstable new mutants." The doctor cleaned his  
  
leader's arm roughly, washing away all traces of the orange iodine. "Any symptoms I should  
  
know of? Anxiety, depression, perhaps headaches? Confusion or disorientation?"  
  
For a moment, he considered. There had been many concerns and some vague feelings of  
  
moroseness. Brief moments of forgetfulness. Symptomatic or merely part of his job?  
  
He shook his head. "None. My health is excellent." He rose and walked out of the  
  
infirmary with Lena right on his heels. Long after they'd fallen out of earshot, he turned to her.  
  
"That man has the bedside manner of Attila the Hun. Minus the good looks."  
  
She broke into a rare broad smile and chuckled softly, matching her leader's stride step for  
  
step. "Guevara does carry on. His sister, I'm told, inherited both the looks and temperament of  
  
a real doctor. It is quite a shame she's not working for us."  
  
"Perhaps we will recruit her one day."  
  
"Maybe. She fell off the radar a few years back. My sources have her working for a  
  
computer software company, but what need would they have for a medical doctor, even if her  
  
skills match those of her brother." She favored him with as gentle and sweet a smile as a reptilian  
  
Feral was ever likely to wear. "I could try to find out more. You know I'd do anything for you."  
  
He smiled. "Yes. That is the one thing I am certain of."  
  
Lena reached out and touched his arm. "It will be alright sir. You've won, you beat Adam  
  
Kane and Mutant X. You, Aaron M. Sheckt, did something that no one, not even Mason  
  
Eckhart, ever came close to doing." She sighed gently. In a musing tone, she said "I wonder if  
  
he knows that they've been destroyed. Eckhart, I mean"  
  
"Oh, I imagine so." Drawing near, he enfolded her in his arms. "He knows."  
  
She twirled her fingers in his long dusky hair, her eyes alive with a mischievous darkness.  
  
"I suppose he does indeed."  
  
They laughed together, very softly.  
  
Masters and victors of the game, unaware that half a dozen pieces were still in play.  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
Frost Lake base lay in ashen ruins. Chunks of wall and jagged shards of machine pointed  
  
up at the sky, like the remains of ancient cities lost to benevolent gods. Flames rose high, licking  
  
what had not yet been completely devastated, encouraging cremation for the carcass of a once  
  
proud military base. The moon had risen to shine cold light downward, bathing all with it's  
  
lifeless beauty and empty simplicity.  
  
Close to a quarter ton of explosives had detonated, acting just as Aaron Sheckt had  
  
wanted, leaving death and debris in the wake. His final movement, in what had seemed to his  
  
coldly twisted mind a chess game, was now made and unretractable.  
  
Beneath the watchful eye of night, smoldering fires began to grow.  
  
Trickles of blood slid out from a crumpled barracks' compacted frame.  
  
Hungry predators drew near, smelling death, holding back from the smoke.  
  
And Jesse Kilmartin let his breath out, becoming a tangible citizen once more. He seemed  
  
dazed, trembling where he stood before collapsing, legs giving out as terrible revelation overran  
  
his every thought to drive him to the edge of sanity.  
  
"They're all dead."  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
Inside the CIA building in Langley, Virginia, through a plain black oak door, several small  
  
and nondescript offices were nestled between much larger conference rooms. In one particular  
  
suite, resting upon the only desk present, a simple metal nameplate embossed with "Director of  
  
Counter-Para-Terrorism" seemed remarkable only for it's uncomfortable wordiness. A half  
  
dozen manila folders with black thumb tabs lay beside an ancient, four-year-old computer,  
  
waiting in an IN box. Steam rose from the coffee mug perched precariously on top. On the  
  
walls surrounding were portraits, two in total for both American President and CIA Director.  
  
"Irene? Have been able to reach Adam?" The woman sitting at the desk, quietly reading  
  
over the latest situation reports of new mutant and related terrorist activities, asked as she tapped  
  
out a request on her keyboard by a solitary finger hunt and peck.  
  
From somewhere else in the section of offices devoted to the Counter-Para-Terrorism  
  
division, CPT for short, came a reply. "Not yet Director Bergl. Doctor Kane hasn't answered  
  
any of our calls. Maybe he's out saving the world already."  
  
"That would make our jobs a lot easier, wouldn't it? Keep trying Irene."  
  
"Yes, ma'am."  
  
CPT Director Christina Bergl closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair for a moment,  
  
waiting for the old computer to finish going through roughly twelve thousand files. She'd almost  
  
finished compiling a federal database of new mutants, one that threatened to grow considerably if  
  
her suspicions regarding covert Genomex projects proved accurate, when news of Gabriel  
  
Ashlocke's latest activities arrived.  
  
The Department of Justice had already been working on a case, with her division's help, to  
  
put Dr. David Clark behind bars for his part in selling terrorists a genetically programmable virus.  
  
Now, she was busy trying to find out why Ashlocke had wanted him and why he'd killed him.  
  
So far, her intelligence was unpleasantly sketchy. Her division lacked resources. The morons in  
  
Congress refused to listen to the President's warnings about new mutant terror. Some had taken  
  
to calling her department "Freak Wars."  
  
Christina wasn't pleased by that nom de guerre nor by the asinine giggles that came from  
  
opposition forces when they used it. There were days she wished to return to her previous lower  
  
position in intelligence. If the current political environment remained, it was all too likely she'd  
  
get that half-hearted wish.  
  
An unsettling thought, given the breadth of potential threats she'd uncovered.  
  
The computer chirruped and made a sound like a dyspeptic horse. Crinkling her nose,  
  
Christina turned her attention to the screen. Her eyes roved over the information displayed as her  
  
face lost all traces of peaceful happiness. "Irene, get in here. Now."  
  
"Director Bergl?" Irene Saunders appeared with a lofty stack of new reports in hand, the  
  
weight of them almost making the very petite, dishwater blonde too unbalanced to stand. She set  
  
them down immediately in an empty spot on Christina's desk. Blowing out a whistling breath in  
  
relief, she quickly straightened and tried to look professional. "Yes, ma'am?"  
  
"We have a problem. Do you remember the old Genomex facility, the one that housed our  
  
predecessor, the Genetic Security Agency?" She waited for a nod before continuing.  
  
"According to Agent Smythe, there's evidence to suggest that someone infiltrated the facility after  
  
our last security sweep. Along with Mason Eckhart, there were twenty-seven new mutants still in  
  
stasis pods. Smythe's count came up short by four. Also, he's asked to run a gene signature scan  
  
on several of the bodies."  
  
"Why exactly does he want to do that?" Irene asked quietly, already darkly intrigued by  
  
the conversation. Lately, her boss had been hinting at sending her back into the field. Given the  
  
results of her previous mission, Irene was desperately hoping it wasn't all a big joke.  
  
Christina sipped her coffee. "Agent Smythe is convinced that several of the bodies in  
  
storage aren't the same ones he checked last time." For a few moments, she seemed calm.  
  
Then, without warning, Director Bergl brought down her fist upon the desk, causing papers to  
  
jump along with Irene.  
  
"Damn those fools. If we had the funding we could have monitored Genomex completely.  
  
God help us all if Barry Stirling got out and decides to play havoc with the stock market again or  
  
how about Anderson Luster? Do you remember that nightmare? He was the only one Eckhart  
  
ever threw in that I never felt an ounce of sympathy for." Shaking her head with frustration, she  
  
pointed at the screen. "Irene, I want you to join Smythe. Work with him, check this out. I want  
  
to know who's missing and who's still there. Can I trust you not to screw up again?"  
  
For a moment, Irene couldn't speak. She was speechless with delight.  
  
Joy gave way for anger as her boss's words fully registered. Her jubilant face collapsed  
  
into a stunned grimace. "I didn't. . . madam Director, what happened with David Sark and  
  
Kendra Makovoy wasn't my fault. Agent Pierce, he. . . he. . . well, you read my report."  
  
"Yes, I did." A long and dark pause descended before she finished. "Your report and  
  
your's alone, seeing as how Agent Pierce was unavailable for comment."  
  
"I didn't kill him."  
  
The lines of Christina's face grew deeper with anger. "You didn't pull the trigger, no.  
  
That honor goes to David Sark. However, it was your decision to save the life of Kendra  
  
Makovoy, a former GSA operative, instead of backing up a fellow CIA agent. Your choice cost  
  
a man his life, a woman her husband of seven years, and three children their father." She let  
  
silence reign; let Irene wallow in remorse. "I understand why you did what you did. Personally, I  
  
can't say I wouldn't have done the same. Still, it wasn't by the book and Pierce died because of  
  
that. His death is the reason you're in this office instead of out in the field."  
  
Irene drew a deep breath. Her regret was deeper still. "Agent Pierce was a fine officer of  
  
the CIA. No one here feels worse about his death than I do. But, in my defense, Ms. Makovoy's  
  
testimony and her efforts to assist our operations to uncover hidden Genomex projects have  
  
proven invaluable. It might have taken several lifetimes otherwise."  
  
"Damn it, don't you think I know that?" Christina thundered, her hands shaking with a  
  
mix of angry frustration and persistent pity. "You're a good field agent. Had the decision been  
  
mine, I wouldn't have removed you from active duty. Regardless, you still made a mistake. It was  
  
a mater of doing the wrong thing for all the right reasons, but that doesn't change the fact that  
  
your actions cost Agent Pierce his life. I don't care if he was a bigoted bastard or that he was  
  
unnecessarily rough when apprehending Kendra Makovoy."  
  
Irene's mouth dropped open.  
  
"Unnecessarily rough? He almost killed her!"  
  
Christina sighed. She rubbed her head and wished for aspirin.  
  
"She wasn't an angel, Irene. It's hard to feel sympathy for a woman who worked willingly  
  
for Mason Eckhart." A cold sneer crept upon her face. "She even admits to having had a crush  
  
on him. How could anyone have a crush on that madman?"  
  
Shaking her head, she finished the last of her coffee, sipping at the dregs. "None of this  
  
really matters now anyway. You're time in secretary land is up, effective five minutes ago. I want  
  
you to report directly to the motor pool. Take a car, head to the Genomex facility and meet with  
  
Smythe. I want a full report regarding those stasis pods ASAP."  
  
With little more than a fleeting backwards glance, Irene Saunders left the office and went  
  
to prove herself. Alone now, Christina laid down her head upon her folded arms. A dozen  
  
different emotions were all fluttering about inside. Worry about Adam and his continued radio  
  
silence, anger over the funding problem, and now sadness as thoughts of Agent Brandon Pierce  
  
came to mind. It was enough to make her long again for the simple life of a lower agent.  
  
The computer wheezed and a static filled voice came over the speakers. "Director Bergl,  
  
this is Terence Wynter. I have some information for you."  
  
Reaching over and pressing a single key without moving her head was easier than  
  
Christina thought it would be. "What is it Terence?" She asked in a muffled voice, her face  
  
pressed against her crossed arms.  
  
"The Echelon monitoring system picked up on a lead. I was told to contact your division.  
  
Total red flag and rockets red glare kinda moment here."  
  
She looked up. "What was the lead?"  
  
"Uh, hold on." Although the audio was still very scratchy, not to mention hollow sounding,  
  
Christina could make out page rustling noises in the background. She smiled thinly, thinking of  
  
Terence sitting at his cluttered desk, shuffling through post-mission reports, men's magazines, and  
  
the remains of countless fast food lunches, brow appropriately furrowed. "Ah, yeah, here it is.  
  
Sorry about that brief delay. I had the wrong file in front of me. Echelon picked up the name  
  
Aaron Sheckt on a communication sent a few minutes ago."  
  
"Tell me there was a trace."  
  
"Better than that. Talkers used an address. Evidently, this Sheckt character has a base out  
  
by Frost Lake. I had a few of my boys check the voices and the fact. The call was placed by a  
  
known associate to a very unknown third party. Standard satellite bounce with extra bells and  
  
whistles. We couldn't trace a damn thing, not that we didn't try, but we do have confirmation of  
  
an abandoned military base right next to, yes you guessed right, Frost Lake USA."  
  
He quickly gave her the exact coordinates in longitude and latitude, casually remarking  
  
that the lake was some distance from a city. The same city, Christina thought anxiously, that  
  
Adam Kane and Mutant X operated near.  
  
"Thanks for the call. I'll send a team out there."  
  
"Anytime Director, anytime. Just doing my part for the red, the white, and even the Blue  
  
Man Group!"  
  
"Very clever." Christina disconnected the call before Terence tried to chat her up any  
  
further. Much as she admired the man's talents with any and all things electronic, he was  
  
beginning to annoy her with his constant attempts to get a date. Some were more subtle than  
  
others, but his overall approach of being witty but wordy was not earning him many points. "Got  
  
to give the man an A for effort though."  
  
She raised her head and shoved back a swath of black hair that had fallen over her face.  
  
The day hadn't begun well, but maybe her luck was changing. She reached out and dialed a  
  
number. It rang thrice before a groggy voice answered.  
  
"Hullo? Huh?"  
  
Had it not been for the soundproofing around her office, everyone in Langley would have  
  
been treated to the sound of a very frustrated woman screaming. "Agent Vince Beckley Jr. were  
  
you sleeping on duty again?"  
  
"Director Bergl? Huh, oh yeah, sorry. I have an infant son, I kinda have to take it where I  
  
can find it, you know? Give me a break, Haladki's got my back." He said through a yawn.  
  
"What's the situation. You know me, I'm ready in a blink."  
  
She was tempted to task someone else for the job but reluctantly gave Agent Beckley the  
  
details of what she'd just learned. "Frost Lake military base. Get there pronto with as many  
  
troops as you can put together. We may have just found Aaron Sheckt's operational base."  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
Jesse's initial shock wore off as he stood alone in the same hallway where he and  
  
Katherine had been fighting Sheckt's security forces. Just a few seconds ago, he'd drawn a deep  
  
breath and become intangible to let her gun down the last of their attackers by firing through his  
  
body. Then, in the instant before he would have taken a breath, an enormous explosion had  
  
rocked the base. Fire had plumed from deep in the hallway and blown through him.  
  
He was alive only because he'd been too shocked to breath.  
  
Desperately, he swung around and started searching the rubble for Katherine. Even as he  
  
began shifting through fragments of plaster ceiling, heaving away shattered wooden roof beams,  
  
Jesse suspected it was hopeless. The hallway where they'd been fighting was nothing. It had  
  
been annihilated.  
  
Thoughts of his friends and teammates, visions of their dead and crushed bodies, spurred  
  
him to faster action.  
  
'Please,' he begged silently in his thoughts. 'God, please, don't let me be the only one  
  
left. Don't let them be dead. Not now, not when Adam and Emma have just found each other,  
  
not when Shalimar and Brennan still haven't admitted how much they love each other.'  
  
His hands shoved away a tangled mass of wires and glass that had once been a light  
  
fixture. A fragment of wall was tossed back next. Countless particles of dust and ash were  
  
shoveled away.  
  
'We just saved Charlotte's life, damn it, she can't be dead!'  
  
Jesse was breathing so fast he verged on hyperventilation, his head growing sleepy as his  
  
vision turned cloudy. No slowing. Every second counted. He kept moving, hoping, digging.  
  
'I won't give up. I won't, I won't, I won't! They're alive! I'll find them! I'll—.'  
  
He stopped. He'd found Katherine's pistol, still clutched in her hand.  
  
A hand caked in blood.  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
The Jacob's Memorial Hospital fire was all the city was talking about. For over an hour,  
  
people had watched, some rendered breathlessly hopeful, others morbidly enticed, by the human  
  
struggle taking place. Reporting the fire, after anchoring many hours of general news beforehand,  
  
left Eve Frost little time for a life this night. She'd given her capable taxi driver her cell phone  
  
number, a knee weakening smile, then graciously accepted a ride home.  
  
Now, she lay sprawled on her couch, one arm against her chest, the other dangling over  
  
the side, legs crossed at the mid thigh, wearing lace and silk and little of both.  
  
The apartment she kept for her own was surprisingly spare. It lacked much in the way of  
  
knickknacks, bric-a-brac, or assorted whatnots. There were only three rooms, not considering a  
  
puny bathroom, four if one counted the balcony off the bedroom, and none of them were quite  
  
spacious. The kitchen doubled as a dinning area, sleek with silvery metal lines. The living area  
  
held a long couch built to accommodate three, two leather chairs, a battered coffee table with a  
  
picture frame perched on it's surface, and two enormous bookshelves against one wall. The  
  
bedroom was the largest of all, but only if you factored in the balcony. It held a vanity, a closet  
  
with pre-assembled outfits, complete with accessories, but only two extra pairs of shoes. Of all  
  
Eve's furnishings, only her bed was remarkable. It was an antique four-poster complete with bed  
  
curtains, a magnificently carved headboard, and satin sheets that made her skin sigh sensuously.  
  
Had she felt like sleeping, the bed would have been her choice. Resting on the couch in  
  
barely-there underwear was more of a pre-sleep activity. She needed to wind down a little. She  
  
felt as if the day had begun months ago rather than starting mere hours before. So much had  
  
happened, she'd spoken of tragedy and triumph and mysteries.  
  
Eve turned her head toward the large screen of her television, pondering briefly if the effort  
  
required to find the remote was worth it.  
  
"No," she muttered to herself, "I've had enough of the world for one day."  
  
Lying quietly, her mind played back the things she'd seen and brought to the world's  
  
attention. As there were few distractions in her Spartan apartment, Eve could concentrate on  
  
everything with great clarity of reason. She'd told the public about the murder of a prominent, if  
  
prejudiced, scientist and the mystery man allegedly responsible. She'd brought the massacre of  
  
several college students, plus two police officers, before the city's citizens. And she'd been at the  
  
inferno. There were other stories she'd told today, however, that had left her uneasy.  
  
Something about the bizarre reports of precognition gnawed at her brain. She kept recalling  
  
the Proxy Blue stories from a year ago, fantasies about rouge government agencies rounding up  
  
freaks of nature. Then, it had seemed pure fiction.  
  
Now, Eve could easily close her eyes and imagine that it was all real. She'd wanted,  
  
pleaded, for an opportunity to return to the investigative journalism roots that had brought her up  
  
from a nameless highschool paper. This "Cassandra Effect" as a popular scientist termed it  
  
seemed the perfect place to start revisiting the uncanny. Could it be explained by the existence of  
  
"mutants" or was there a rational, boring answer?  
  
Eve turned over so that the gentle stream of air-conditioned wind could trace the lines of  
  
her slight shoulders and tight buttocks rather than her petite bosom and toned tummy. Her hair,  
  
wheat blonde streaked seamlessly with natural auburn, fell in gentle curls around her face. Eyes  
  
shut, she could have imagined a man's fingers massaging the day's woes out of her muscles, but  
  
lonely reality couldn't be ignored. Still, Eve lingered in her new position, thinking.  
  
Proxy Blue had gone silent months back. Perhaps, just perhaps, it had been telling some  
  
of the truth. If the computer generated Mulder spewing paranoid mysteries had been even  
  
remotely on to something, she wanted the story. More than any other before it, this one was  
  
important. To be the one to hunt it, track it, stalk it, trap it, and force it into the open. . . Eve  
  
could think of nothing she'd rather do. The idea that there were humans outside in her city,  
  
people with strange and wondrous powers, nipped at the child within that once dreamed of  
  
unicorns and a handsome prince on a white horse.  
  
Plus, it was a hell of a better way of explaining the weird premonitions than coincidence.  
  
"Like anything that freaky and widespread could be coincidence. Statistically improbable  
  
and too boring for the news." She rolled back over and stretched, arching her back slightly as  
  
she did. "Note to self, check with all sources regarding the old Proxy Blue reports. And, Evie,  
  
sweetheart, remember not to scream at your cameramen just because they put you in a bad light  
  
during a fire. Their lives suck more than yours."  
  
As she started to sit up, her cell rang, chiming a lullaby tune her mother had written. Eve  
  
leaned over the back of the couch and snatched the phone from her purse. "Hello?"  
  
"Hi. Um, I don't know if you recognize my voice."  
  
The softest grin formed on Eve's face. "The handsome cab driver." She lay back. "Tell  
  
me, what's a nice guy like you calling a girl like me for?"  
  
He sighed. "This is going to sound like a line, but I can't stop thinking about you. There's  
  
just something about you." There was nervousness in his voice and a reluctance to speak. Eve  
  
sat up straighter, hearing the serious tone to his words. "I just. . . well, I. . . are you really for  
  
real. You know, about dinner and everything."  
  
She smiled, very gently. "Yeah. I always keep my word and I never give it unless I'm very  
  
serious about it. Maybe there's something about you too." An impulse made her lean forward  
  
seductively, though he could not see her. "So my pretty face is stuck in your head huh? Would  
  
you like more than that to think about?"  
  
"Um. What exactly does that mean?"  
  
Eve grinned, her expression at once sensual and extremely sweet. "Let me tell you what  
  
I'm wearing right now," she said, her fingers fiddling with the lace hem of her panties. The  
  
faintest blush tinged her cheeks. "Or, rather, not wearing."  
  
There was total silence on the other line.  
  
"Hey? You still there?" She asked when he didn't answer, feeling suddenly foolish.  
  
A moment later, the taxi driver spoke, sounding like he was blushing too, though far brighter  
  
than Eve. "I'm not sure I could take that. I've got a weak heart." Even over the phone, she  
  
could hear him smiling warmly with desire. "At least, I seem to where you're concerned."  
  
"Flattery will get you anything you want."  
  
"You don't even know my name." He whispered, barely audible over the static hiss.  
  
Eve laid back on the couch. "Yes I do my handsome taxi driver." She chuckled softly,  
  
then said "You're name's John Martin. You're ID's plastered to the back of the seat in your  
  
cab."  
  
After that, they said their slow goodbyes, leaving Eve alone. Her eyes fell on the picture  
  
frame sitting on her coffee table. "My friends, I wonder where you are right now."  
  
There were three girls, arms around each other, enormous grins plastered across their  
  
faces. The middle lovely was Eve. On the right, a girl with glasses and white blonde hair in a  
  
fashionable bun, to the left, rolling her eyes, a brunette leaning her head against Eve's shoulder.  
  
Beneath the picture, a caption in tiny print, with hearts at either end.  
  
[Best Friends: Tessa McCarthy, Evelyn "Eve" Frost, Emma DeLauro]  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
Flickering lights.  
  
Dancing lights.  
  
Pretty lights.  
  
'Fireflies?' The thought formed groggily in Shalimar's mind. Her vision was blurred and  
  
seemed to swim in and out of focus, as if her eyes were controlled by a broken dimmer switch.  
  
Colors seemed dull, yet very sharp. She hurt terribly.  
  
Sparks burst over head, more of the flickering-dancing-pretty lights. Fireflies frolicking.  
  
Memory cut into reality, a day long past spent playing in a field of wild flowers, playing till the  
  
late sun began to dip away. She was seven, dressed pretty. Blue skirt, pink blouse, red ribbons  
  
circling innocent blonde ringlet curls. Her mother loved to curl that hair; her father loved to  
  
watch her dance and play.  
  
Shalimar in memory was laughing and chasing fireflies.  
  
Her father stood away from her, watching, the biggest grin on his face. Nearby, a man in  
  
a light brown suit, briefcase clutched by his side. Genomex insignia stenciled into the case, the  
  
word, (no, the surname) Falcon below it. Father was saying "you see what you've done for me?  
  
She's healthy and happy again. Thank God for Genomex. I swear, if there's ever anything I can  
  
do for Mr. Eckhart, you tell him that Nicholas Fox owes him a favor."  
  
Even then, before she knew anything about the nightmares that would come and the sins  
  
of Mason Eckhart, a small girl had a bad feeling when she heard her daddy say that. Brown suit  
  
man wasn't nice.  
  
"Shalimar?"  
  
She shook her head. It hurt. It helped. Her vision cleared and her thoughts returned to  
  
the present. They'd been outside the infirmary, Devon was about to open the door, then. . . there  
  
had been an explosion, she'd been knocked out. Her last memory before now: thinking 'I can't  
  
die yet, I never told Brennan.'  
  
She looked up and he was kneeling over her, one hand pressed gently to her forehead,  
  
almost as if he were checking for a fever. "Hey. Welcome back. You gave us a real scare for a  
  
bit there. Can you do something for me Shal? I need you to squeeze my hand. See, I'm holding  
  
your right hand and I need you to squeeze real tight." Brennan's eyes were large and soft and  
  
brown, filled with a heartwarming concern and outright joy that she'd woken up.  
  
"Am I hurt?" The question sounded so silly to her ears that Shalimar giggled. "Boy, that  
  
was a stupid thing to say. Better to ask if any part of me isn't hurt." She gripped Brennan's hand  
  
as tightly as she could, showing him that she was fine.  
  
When she started to sit up, he gently pressed her back down. "Whoa, hold on. Move  
  
slow. You've been out for a few minutes."  
  
A genuine sweet smile formed on Shalimar's lips. "And here I thought you were the one  
  
who needed help."  
  
"I told you guys before, I'm fine. This is only, what, the third time I've been blown up  
  
today? Or did I miscount?" He grinned back at her and tucked a loose strand of her blonde hair  
  
back behind her ear. "I'll help you up. Just put your weight on me and if you feel dizzy, tell me.  
  
Okay?" When she nodded, he lent her his arm and, with a subdued grunt, practically lifted  
  
Shalimar from the floor by himself.  
  
Standing, she suddenly became aware of the incredible devastation all around them. She  
  
also realized that they were standing in the middle of an enormous crater, surrounded on all sides  
  
by fragmented pieces of the building and glittery metallic debris that she only belated realized  
  
were what little remained of various medical devices.  
  
Adam and Emma were standing off to one side, just holding each other. Her head was  
  
resting on his shoulder, his hand was cradling her body against his, palm in the small of her back.  
  
He was whispering something to her, words that made a faint smile blossom. Then he leaned  
  
down and ever so gently kissed the back of her head. He held her tighter. They looked so  
  
terribly happy together.  
  
It made Shalimar feel sick. When Adam had told her, she'd been angry and hurt and didn't  
  
know why. Now she understood. He was the closet thing she had to a father since her own had  
  
betrayed her, locking her in a psychiatric ward around birthday number twelve.  
  
Happy birthday kiddo! Your first gift is mutant Feral powers! Gift number two is an all  
  
expenses paid trip to hell on earth! Aren't you just the luckiest, prettiest little darling?  
  
He was like a father. Emma was her best friend. It felt like a betrayal, perhaps even more  
  
so for the fact that they'd pretended it wasn't happening; they'd lied by omission.  
  
Shalimar understood her anger. She just couldn't make it go away.  
  
"You okay?" Brennan asked, his arm around her, braced to catch her if she started to  
  
slide faint to the floor.  
  
Shalimar didn't answer.  
  
Maybe she didn't have an answer.  
  
From a place near a crushed air duct, Charlotte Cooke muttered. "I'm just fine. No,  
  
please, stop worrying over me. It's just a scratch." All eyes turned to her, and in turning to her,  
  
they also fell upon the deep gash in her leg. A shard of metal from the infirmary door had impaled  
  
her mid thigh. "Heat cauterized it, I think. I'm not bleeding anymore. Not that any of you would  
  
have noticed if I were."  
  
She tried to pull herself up and actually managed it after hissing in excruciating and  
  
previously unimaginable agony. After she'd unclenched her teeth, she glanced around the semi  
  
dark pit they'd fallen into. "Where's that Bowden guy?"  
  
The words were barely out of her mouth before something wet and red splattered onto the  
  
ground in front of her. Blood dripping from a hand stretched over the edge of the pit.  
  
  
  
  
  
In the hallway, Jesse had uncovered Katherine Bowden. He thought she was breathing.  
  
Thought. He couldn't be sure. There might have been a pulse; again, just not certain. There was  
  
a lot of blood though. Her clothes weren't soaked in it, but there were dark spots where pieces  
  
of rubble had pierced flesh and torn deep. Only a few places bled freely; the rest were clotted  
  
with dust and ash. Jesse took the continued bleeding as both good and bad.  
  
Good, because it meant her heart was still beating.  
  
Bad, because it meant she was dying.  
  
He carefully lifted her damaged body into his arms and started walking toward where the  
  
infirmary had been, where Adam and the others were taking Brennan to check him out.  
  
Balancing her carefully, he had taken only a few steps when he heard something, a sound that  
  
was becoming very familiar to him as the day wore on. Jesse turned around, knowing that  
  
someone had a gun on him and that he was not going to get out of this without Lady Luck, God,  
  
and anyone else who felt like lending a hand.  
  
"Slowly, Kilmartin. Move it slow or I'm going to have to kill you where you stand."  
  
That voice was vaguely familiar. It was cold, emotionless. Yet, there was a tone to it,  
  
something that called to mind a character from a book Jesse had read, the voice of night itself.  
  
He felt sweat and shock pour out of him in equal portions.  
  
He turned slowly and, standing calmly with pistol in hand and twisted smile on face, was  
  
Duncan Ladd. His attire included a bullet hole riddled shirt, darkly stained, and a vest of combat  
  
webbing with extra clips and grenades nestled safely.  
  
"That's right you son of a bitch. I'm back from the dead." His eyes flared with insanity  
  
and a rage that turned Jesse's stomach. "And you don't look very happy to see me. You don't  
  
look happy at all. And do you know what happens to people who lose those special happy  
  
thoughts?" The madman grinned. "Simon, dearest of all my friends, give him a hint."  
  
Jesse froze as the barrel of a pistol was pressed to the back of his head.  
  
Behind him, another dead man grinned. His name was Simon. Jesse had seen his lifeless  
  
corpse at the safe house, a daisy-pusher before they'd rescued Charlotte. Yet, he was here.  
  
'I'm in hell,' Jesse thought, stunned horror filling him. 'I'm in hell.'  
  
"We're talking to you." Simon snarled, jabbing his weapon so hard into the back of  
  
Jesse's head that he nearly dropped Katherine. "My friend asked you a question. You're losing  
  
your happy thoughts, losing them good and fast. So tell us, Mr. Mutant X Man, tell us what  
  
happens when those pretty fairytales are dead as dust in your mouth?" Another sharp jab, this  
  
time done so that the triangle of metal at the barrel's end, the sight, tore into Jesse's scalp,  
  
drawing blood.  
  
Duncan stepped forward and grabbed Katherine's body from Jesse's arms.  
  
Without hesitation, he threw her like a child's rag doll.  
  
She collapsed in a seemingly lifeless heap on the floor.  
  
"When the veil of lies your mother told you about good beating evil, your happy thoughts,  
  
are gone, you see truth." Duncan raised his pistol so that it was set between Jesse's eyes. "You  
  
wake up in hell."  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
Kelly Rice had fallen asleep guarding Gabriel.  
  
If she'd been awake, she would have hated herself for that.  
  
As it were, she slept and dreamed and remembered. First, she dreamed of the memory of  
  
trying to leave the Strand. Her doubts overcame her that day. Gabriel would never return. He  
  
had been taken by Eckhart and there was no hope. She'd believed that and, even in sleep, she  
  
hatred herself for that moment of weakness. Though forgiven by her god, by Ashlocke, Kelly still  
  
despised the escape attempt.  
  
It had failed, of course. Morgan had found her and brought her back.  
  
Memory showed her Shalimar and Brennan as they fought Morgan and the Feral she'd  
  
brought along. Had Kelly been better prepared, less afraid, she'd have won. Fear of fire was  
  
genetically programed into Ferals. Morgan had never been particularly smart. If Mutant X  
  
hadn't abandoned her, hadn't left her to be caught, she'd have gotten away too.  
  
Pain came as she remembered. They ran away. They left her behind. Morgan could have  
  
killed her and they hadn't cared. Suddenly, in the dream, Kelly found herself back in the Clark  
  
warehouse, fires all around. Jesse Kilmartin and Shalimar, that bitch who'd run, were standing  
  
before her.  
  
"Come with us!" Jesse yelled, and it would have been so easy to go.  
  
He was so cute.  
  
"You tried to escape once, you can do it again." He said gently, and suddenly, the fires  
  
were gone and so was Shalimar. Only he remained, standing there before Kelly. They were out  
  
in the country. The scenery was familiar and she wanted to run, run fast and far, run from the  
  
memory that would soon come, but suddenly Jesse moved forward, grabbed her arms and held  
  
her so tight she couldn't get away.  
  
He screamed out at her, the sound thundering throughout the vast world of her dream,  
  
echoing forever inside. "Run Kelly! Run, run, as fast as you can! He's coming now and I can't  
  
hold him back. Please go! Go!" Jesse released her arms and she started to move backwards,  
  
away from Jesse Kilmartin and the dark things she'd done.  
  
Then he wasn't the cute blond haired, blue-eyed member of Mutant X. He was Gabriel,  
  
he was her god, only she didn't want to be his, not in any way, any shape, not for all the love or  
  
money in creation. Her backwards steps turned to desperate flight, but he grabbed her and  
  
pinned her arms behind her before she could get far.  
  
There was a terrible grin on his face, the face of the man he'd become. "Kelly, Kelly,  
  
Kelly, I am so very disappointed in you. What happened to faith? What happened to love?" He  
  
laughed as she struggled and tried to escape. "I have to remind you, don't I? You're making me  
  
do this, babe. Don't worry, I'll be gentle. You'll love me soon."  
  
His laughter filled her mind then he was gone but he wasn't. Gabriel the man vanished and  
  
Gabriel the young boy, barely near teenage years, stood holding her arms. She'd first met him  
  
when at this age, so many years ago. Before the pod, before Genomex took him, here was the  
  
boy who would be a god. There was a smile on his lips, but it wasn't a child's smile. Knowledge  
  
lay behind it, far darker knowledge than any mere boy could have. Gabriel lacked years, but he  
  
was already a man. He was already planning to murder his parents.  
  
"I've got secrets." The boy Ashlocke whispered conspiratorially, still holding tight to  
  
Kelly's arms. "You want to see? Do you? I've got a club house and everything. There are  
  
others, just like you and me. We're safe together. The old geeks don't know I built it."  
  
She pulled away at last, but it didn't matter. The first headquarters of the Strand rose in  
  
her mind's eye, filled the world a thousand fold. "Mine, all mine." Boy Gabriel said with such  
  
sickening self-absorption that Kelly wanted to kill him. He looked back and saw how afraid she  
  
was, how desperate to run from what was coming. "You liked me once. Liked this place once.  
  
We all liked you, didn't we Kelly? We were all friends here."  
  
There was madness in those eyes. Why hadn't she seen it before? Why? She wanted to  
  
run but her feet were being held off the ground. Morgan was standing behind Boy Gabriel, just a  
  
little girl herself but with powers. And, amazingly, Kelly felt herself grow young again. She was  
  
crying and crying, just like a child, because she was one suddenly. She was so afraid.  
  
With a swish, Boy Gabriel and Girl Morgan vanished. They were gone away, but Kelly  
  
was still there. She was alone, standing nowhere, for the world had disappeared with them. She  
  
felt so afraid and so terribly lost. Her nose was running and tears were streaming.  
  
"I want my mommy." She cried out quietly. "I want mommy and daddy."  
  
A figure appeared before her. It was Jesse again.  
  
"You tried to escape once, you can do it again." He whispered softly, reaching out to hug  
  
the frightened child Kelly had become. "We want to help you. Gabriel's a madman. He's using  
  
you and all the Links. He doesn't care about you. We do." Memory mixed and meted out. His  
  
words from Clark's warehouse. She sniffed and he had a tissue. She smiled.  
  
"I didn't mean to be bad." Kelly whispered. "I didn't mean to."  
  
Jesse vanished. She desperately grabbed where he had been, trying to find him.  
  
"Please, come back mister!" Her high pitched child's voice broke in fear and trembled  
  
with remorse. "I'm sorry, please, don't leave me! Please. I'll be good. I promise I'll be good."   
  
She closed her eyes and the world changed into a small girl's bedroom, with pink painted walls  
  
and stuffed unicorns on a beautiful bed with star covered sheets that looked like a night's sky on  
  
Christmas eve. Kelly opened her eyes and saw and started shaking uncontrollably. She knew  
  
this memory. She knew and didn't want to remember.  
  
"It was an accident." Kelly whispered, wrapping her arms around herself. "It was an  
  
accident. Please, don't leave me here. I'm sorry I was a bad girl."  
  
The memory began to play. She was compelled to do as she had so many years ago.  
  
Her father came into the room. He smiled in a depressed way. "Kelly, honey, now don't  
  
cry. I promise you, it won't hurt much. Just a little sting, that's all." He came closer and knelt  
  
down before her. "Come on sweetie. Daddy's had his vaccination shots and I'm okay."  
  
"The needles hurt!" Kelly wailed in the dream as she had in real life so many years ago, "I  
  
don't want to see doctor Falcon. He's mean!"  
  
"Now, honey, that's no way to talk about the man who saved your life. If it weren't for him  
  
and Genomex, you wouldn't be the healthy, beautiful little darling you are right now." Her father  
  
gave her a hug. "There, now. That's better."  
  
It was better. Kelly sniffed and let him pick her up, even though it strained his back.  
  
"You're getting too old for me to carry you around honey." But he laughed when he said it and  
  
she laughed because she loved her father and knew she'd been dumb to act the way she had.  
  
He'd carried her almost to the front door before setting her down. She walked after him as he  
  
opened the door but stopped when her head started aching and her hands started to feel itchy.  
  
"Daddy, I don't feel so good."  
  
He turned away from the front door, she never knew why because he had been taking her  
  
out to see her doctor. Maybe he thought it was a joke or maybe that she was faking. Kelly  
  
never asked him why he turned his back to the door, why he leaned down so close, why he  
  
smiled the way he did and said "I love you Kelly."  
  
Maybe he'd known what was going to happen.  
  
She'd started to reach toward him, wanting him to make her hands stop itching, when the  
  
fire came. It burst up in a thin but almost white hot gusher. Kelly's father never had a chance.  
  
He was dead before the he'd realized he was on fire.  
  
"Daddy! Daddy!" Kelly screamed as she had that day. Then she ran for her mother, her  
  
mother in the baby's room, her mother who could fix it, because Mrs. Rice was a nurse and she  
  
knew how to fix the big booboos. "Mommy! Daddy's hurt!" She didn't know he was dead.  
  
She was a child again, she didn't know that she'd just killed him because no one had told her that  
  
now she could make fire walls because she was a new mutant. Kelly couldn't know she'd killed  
  
the father who loved her.  
  
She came into the baby's room to find her mother holding her infant brother, staring  
  
fearfully at her daughter. "What happened Kelly?" The question was vaguely accusing because  
  
Mrs. Rice always worried about how her husband carried their daughter.  
  
Kelly turned slightly back toward the doorway, gesturing, beginning to say that something  
  
bad happened and daddy was on fire, but she never said a word. The instant she pointed, fire  
  
bloomed again like a Death Rose from hell, like a one-way ticket on a ferryboat across Styx, a  
  
ride to oblivion.  
  
"Mommy! I'm scared!" Kelly screamed, falling back from the fire. Even as she cried out,  
  
a part of her waggled a disapproving finger inside. Dancing flames didn't frighten her.  
  
They were, in fact, quite beautiful.  
  
Her mother picked her up from behind and carried both her daughter and her baby son,  
  
not even a year old, into the bathroom. She reached up and tried to turn on the shower, to  
  
drench them in water, but she couldn't. That morning, a neighborhood boy, a very mean boy  
  
that Kelly didn't know yet but would soon, had turned off their water. As pranks go, fairly  
  
harmless. Unless there was a fire.  
  
Mrs. Rice started praying.  
  
Her son started crying.  
  
Kelly left the shower stall to get a tissue.  
  
Her mother saw and reached out, "Kelly, baby, come here! I think we're safe here!" She  
  
might have said more, probably would have prayed more, but the moment her daughter turned,  
  
hands raised in the act of reaching for that tissue, the fire came.  
  
Mrs. Rice had, to a point, been right. A half hour later, after the fire department got inside,  
  
they found Kelly alive and well, cried into unconsciousness under a sink. The flames from outside  
  
the bathroom hadn't taken inside because all of the room was tiled from floor to ceiling. Her  
  
mother had loved ceramic tiles and insisted, disregarding the price, that every bathroom be like  
  
that. There was, as a result, only one bathroom in the Rice home.  
  
Kelly's mother and baby brother had died slower than her father, because the fire wall  
  
she'd accidently created in the shower was weaker and had only human flesh to fuel it's heat.  
  
Unable to move, unwilling to move, Kelly's clothes, skin, hair, even her lungs, choked with the  
  
scent of cooking meat.  
  
Of the seven firefighters who beat the flames in the Rice home and found Kelly alive,  
  
crying in her sleep, not a single one ever forgot that unholy stench or the sight of a tiny blonde girl  
  
under a sink. Eventually, they'd taken up a collection to help the orphaned child. Two had even  
  
acted as foster parents for a short time, before Kelly was found by Gabriel, less than a year after  
  
she'd killed her family.  
  
He forgave her then, on that long ago day. Sweetly, gently, lovingly made her see that it  
  
was a horrible accident. She had done nothing wrong. He showed her the way. He saved her  
  
sanity and her soul.  
  
That was how Gabriel Ashlocke became her god.  
  
This was what Kelly Rice dreamed.  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
With surprising ease, the members of Mutant X, plus Charlotte, climbed out of the hole  
  
they'd fallen into. Standing outside where the infirmary had been, working together, they'd  
  
managed to lift the heavy metal door that had been on top of Devon and throw it back down into  
  
the level below. It had been the infirmary door, the one he'd been just about to open. Explosive  
  
force had torn the barrier from it's hinges, a cleaved remnant of said hinges having become the  
  
stabbing metallic splinter in Charlotte's leg. Devon had been pinned beneath the door.  
  
"Is he alive?" Brennan asked, in a voice so numbed with shock and weariness that he only  
  
sounded moderately interested, as if he saw death far too often to be further impressed.  
  
Standing apart from the others, debating whether or not to rip the shard of slag from her  
  
thigh, Charlotte looked over at them, at Devon, and started crying silently. She'd seen death.  
  
Too much of it in fact and wished with all her heart that there would be no more. Her mind kept  
  
trying to turn to Jesse but she refused to consider him. She had to not think about him, because  
  
she was, at heart, a pessimist despite the hopeful things she'd written down.  
  
She knew if she started thinking about Jesse, she'd think about him dead and, right then,  
  
that was the one thing Charlotte could not and would not allow herself to think. Hope was all she  
  
had to cling to. Hope that Jesse was okay, that she'd find him, that they'd get out of the ruins of  
  
Frost Lake.  
  
Because they were trapped right now. Whether Devon was alive or dead, they were  
  
trapped. What little of the hall around the infirmary that hadn't collapsed was surrounded by  
  
caved in debris piles. Roof beams, enormous chunks of plaster, pieces of wall.  
  
They were quite impassible.  
  
"He's alive," Emma DeLauro whispered quietly, "but just barely. He'll need a hospital."  
  
Near her side, Charlotte thought they made a lovely couple, Adam was studying one  
  
closed off sections of hallway. He reached out and tried to move some of the junk, only to leap  
  
back, his arms going around Emma to protect her, as the entire pile rumbled closer by several  
  
millimeters, then stopped.  
  
"Please, don't do that again." Brennan whispered, holding Shalimar close.  
  
The blonde nodded. "Yeah, Adam. We can't dig out. This whole place is just barely  
  
staying stable as it is. We need Jesse."  
  
Emma reluctantly disengaged herself from Adam, hesitating only so long as it took for her  
  
to remember that Devon needed help. She knelt down beside him, reaching into his mind and  
  
giving him dose after dose of hope and faith and inspiration. Beside her again, Adam. He  
  
checked the man's vitals. His face was grim. She looked to him and there was no reassurance  
  
there, only a sad surrender.  
  
"He's not going to die." Emma said, meeting his eyes, needing this man whom she loved  
  
and had, truthfully, always loved, to tell her a lie. She wanted him to lie to her. Somewhere  
  
deep, where soul and mind met, she reached out to him and he to her.  
  
And, he touched her hand, did not take hold but just barely touched the very top.  
  
He lied to her.  
  
"Everything's going to be okay."  
  
Emma's eyes said thank you.  
  
  
  
  
  
If Aaron Sheckt's plan to murder Mutant X had had a flaw, it was this: Katherine Bowden  
  
had never truly worked for him. Her infiltration of his organization under the guise of a thrill  
  
seeking new convert, her training, the time away from her husband, it had all been lies. Her true  
  
loyalty was to Devon and America. She was CIA, a part of America's answer to new mutant  
  
terrorism, the Counter-Para-Terrorism division.  
  
Until she came to "kill" Emma DeLauro, and instead faked her death for the surveillance  
  
equipment, her husband had never even suspected the truth.  
  
She wasn't sure she'd get the chance to make things up to him either, for something  
  
terrible had happened. An explosion had torn through the Frost Lake base and she'd been  
  
caught up in it. Her body ached all over and her ears were ringing deafly, thought it seemed some  
  
time had passed. Thick blots of clotted blood tangled in her hair, marring the left side of her  
  
head. She groaned in pain when she tried to move, feeling acutely the agony of having been  
  
buried alive.  
  
Having once been in an explosion, a minor terrorist attack which occurred shortly after  
  
she'd joined the CIA as a field agent, she recognized the feeling.  
  
"Well, well, well. Look who's awake."  
  
The voice, stone frozen and dark as septic sludge, made Katherine play statue.  
  
It was impossible for her to be hearing that voice.  
  
"Are you acting dead? Good. You'll need practice for the real thing."  
  
She opened her eyes and found him, his face a still mask of rage and madness.  
  
"I killed you." Katherine said, wondering momentarily if she could be in hell. She didn't  
  
remember committing any sin quite bad enough to deserve the ticket down, but then again, her  
  
head was a bit leaden from being nearly blown up. "How can you be here?"  
  
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Jesse, who was being held at gun point by  
  
Simon, another monster who was supposed to have disappeared when the lights came on.  
  
Duncan Ladd knelt close and twisted her face toward him, sending a wave of agony through  
  
her entire body. "Boggles the mind, does it? Well, here's a clue you pathetically micro-brained  
  
bitch. I'm a new mutant with Molecular abilities. I can repair and regenerate my bodily tissues.  
  
You should really consider leaving murder to more qualified experts, like myself." He looked up  
  
and across the ruins of what had been a long hallway inside the Frost Lake base, his eyes finding  
  
several men who were walking toward him. "Ah, Simon, it's good to see all of you."  
  
This wasn't happening. It couldn't be. Her heart grew chill at the very concept.  
  
Three men were drawing near and each wore the same face.  
  
"Confused?" Duncan asked with a snarling laugh. "Another of Sheckt's finest recruits.  
  
New mutant all the way. Rather rare gift, probably the only one with it in all the world. Simon can  
  
duplicate himself. Too bad his clones have a nasty habit of going insane."  
  
A few of the Simons laughed at this while two them didn't seem to know how to react.  
  
Only one, his eyes and gun on Jesse, acted deaf. She made an intuitive leap and surmised this  
  
was the original. Her thoughts turned to her pistol, and she wondered what would happen if the  
  
real Simon died, as she tried to signal Jesse with eyes alone.  
  
Though she was nearly dead, almost surely going to soon be dead, Katherine was still an  
  
agent of the CIA.  
  
She still had a job to do.  
  
Perhaps noticing her glance at Jesse, or maybe just deciding to taunt her some more on his  
  
own, Duncan jerked Katherine up to a sitting position. He took aim with his own pistol at Jesse.  
  
"Look upon him, my dear traitorous bitch. He's alive, you're alive, all because I, Duncan Ladd,  
  
prepared for your betrayal. While I pretended to trust you, Sheckt saw fit to place you in a  
  
position to be his perfect instrument of disinformation. Everything you've sent whomever you  
  
work for has been fabricated by him for you."  
  
He laughed at her astonished face, never realizing that when he'd thrown her from Jesse's  
  
arms before, she had landed virtually atop her own weapon. Fraction of a fraction, she was  
  
edging her left hand to the pistol's comforting grip.  
  
Katherine had a plan, but she had to make Jesse understand that he had to phase out. If  
  
he massed out, becoming solid and virtually impervious, the plan would fail and her life would be  
  
spent uselessly.  
  
While she planned, her eyes desperately trying to send Jesse a signal, Duncan was speaking.  
  
"This is indeed a night for surprises. Somehow, Mutant X managed to plant explosives to murder  
  
my leader. Truly brilliant, though a tad insane, but I must salute you." He faked a bow, his gun  
  
never leaving Jesse's heart, it's target across a few meters empty space.  
  
That was good. Katherine needed that gun to stay exactly where it was.  
  
Duncan watched her, his eyes darkening. "This is a night for surprises, is it not? You betray  
  
me, but I maintain the full loyalty of all of Simon." At this praise, one of the Simons bowed  
  
theatrically, then laughed. "Hmm. Another one losing his grip, eh my friend?"  
  
The real Simon, the one standing behind Jesse, smirked. "Don't worry. As long as my I'm  
  
here to exert my will over them, they'll keep long enough for what needs to be done. Now, kill  
  
the speech and kill that bitch already. If her friends on the outside manage to reactivate the bombs  
  
my other selves defused, we'll end up as dead as my slower selves."  
  
Katherine caught Jesse's eye at last, just as Duncan turned his head to glare at Simon. To  
  
signal him about her plan, she started blinking at high speed in morse code. For a moment, he  
  
seemed confused. Then, suddenly, his own eyes grew wide and she knew he understood what  
  
she was doing. She signaled him that she needed him to phase out on her signal. There was no  
  
time to pass more than that simple message on. Duncan and Simon's brief staring match was  
  
over.  
  
Duncan sighed. "We should savor this moment more. It is not often that one get's to kill  
  
someone so obviously blessed. To think, until their own bombs, neither one of them had a single  
  
life-threatening injury. Astounding." He shook his head gently and began to smile.  
  
At the instant he was about to turn back to her, to kill her, Katherine shouted out to Simon,  
  
"he killed you at the safe house!" Whether Simon had already known this fact or not, her scream  
  
distracted him for an instant. In that moment, Jesse took a breath so fast it made him dizzy. He  
  
became intangible, untouchable.  
  
Seeing that Jesse was taking that breath, Duncan had instinctively fired.  
  
There was just enough time, between him pulling the trigger and the bullet exploding from  
  
it's chamber, for Jesse to become completely phased out.  
  
The lead slug from Duncan's pistol burrowed through the space Jesse occupied, plowed  
  
through Simon's own chest, turned the multiple man's heart into evil tartar, and burst from his  
  
back to strike the back wall and embed itself there. Simon's own impulse, just as the bullet was  
  
ripping through him, the same instant he realized that Jesse was phasing, was to shoot as well.  
  
His bullet raced across to Duncan and flashed by his face, the heat of it's passage leaving a faint  
  
scorch mark on his cheek.  
  
Duncan Ladd spun around, stuck his gun in Katherine's belly, just as she brought her own  
  
weapon up and jammed it under his chin. They both pulled the trigger at the same time. He died  
  
instantly, his brains destroyed by a high velocity round that tore through his skull and bored into  
  
the roof. Katherine felt like she'd been punched in the gut.  
  
Jesse started breathing again.  
  
To be accurate, he gasped desperately, drawing in as much air in a series of choking gulps  
  
as he could, filling his lungs so quickly that his thoughts swam like fish and his vision blurred. He  
  
watched the fine red mist that lingered for a brief instant over Duncan's head mix with plaster  
  
ceiling dust that cascaded down like snowfall from the apocalypse.  
  
A hanging tube of fluorescence sputtered and glinted. Jesse glanced left and right. The  
  
other Simons were on the floor, just as dead as the original, though a few twitched disturbingly.  
  
Without hesitation, he rushed to Katherine's side and dropped down so that he knelt over her.  
  
He shoved Duncan's lifeless body away, hoping that this time there would be no regeneration.  
  
He took hold of her hand and felt a squeeze, relief flooding him as she let out a groan.  
  
"What the hell happened?" She muttered as her eyes opened. "Jesse? Uh, my stomach  
  
hurts." For this instant, her mind was muddled. It cleared in the next instant. Reboot after the  
  
system shock. "Tell Devon, I'm sorry."  
  
"Tell him yourself." Jesse whispered, rapidly tearing strips of cloth from his own shirt.  
  
He bandaged the wound as best he could and pulled her up. Her anguished scream did nothing  
  
to deter him from his desperate attempt to force the universe to give them one more miracle.  
  
"You hold on to that pain. You stay with me."  
  
Jesse carried her to the wall, touched the wall, and phased it so that they could pass  
  
through. It took only a few seconds, but in that time, Katherine slipped out of consciousness.  
  
He was outside, it was night and dark and a feeling of palpable misery hung in the air.  
  
Only in that moment, as he laid Katherine down beside the lake, desperately hoping that he  
  
would never have to deliver her message, did he realize that there were dozens of men all around  
  
him. Every one of them was armed. Every weapon was on him. Someone was yelling for him to  
  
put his hands behind his head and get on the ground.  
  
He was too tired to do anything else.  
  
He wondered where the others were.  
  
He hoped they were better off than him.  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
Dr. Laura Guevara sat at her desk, staring at a picture of her brother Larenzo, remembering  
  
better times. Her family had come to America many generations ago, yet before the famous  
  
Guevara twins, not a single member managed any sort of education. There were no doctors  
  
before them. There had been, in fact, only a single Guevara to graduate from highschool. Uncle  
  
Max had inspired both his niece and nephew to go farther.  
  
Together, they'd worked for tuition money. Together, they'd studied. Together, they  
  
graduated from college as co-valedictorians, because their grades were identical and so were  
  
their contributions to the school and to various clubs they'd been a part of.  
  
Both applied to the same medical schools by an unspoken agreement that both wanted to  
  
be doctors. Only there did they begin to differentiate. Laura had loved healing people. She'd  
  
never been happier but her brother had been drawn away from such altruistic work to become  
  
more than a simple medical doctor. He'd transformed himself into a research scientist of renown,  
  
specializing in human genetics and the Chimera theory pioneered by Dr. Stephen Falcon.  
  
She'd followed his lead to a degree. She had become more than just an ordinary doctor  
  
too. Her range included advanced courses in various surgeries. Dr. Laura Guevara knew more  
  
about saving people's lives than any ten doctors. She could perform brain surgery, heart surgery,  
  
complex nerve surgeries, and just about anything else. Her instincts for diagnosis were also  
  
impeccable; she was better than most diagnostic machines.  
  
When they'd separated, the famous Guevara twins also fell out of touch. Laura wasn't  
  
even certain where her brother was or who he was working with.  
  
"Dr. Guevara?"  
  
She set down the picture and turned around. Without her noticing, one of James King's  
  
followers had entered her office. "How may I help you?"  
  
The servant, that was how she saw the members of the Society of Supremacy, bowed  
  
slightly to her. She'd earned respect by her actions. It had been her efforts, bought at a dear  
  
price, which had secured a new mutant named Templeton Darroch for the Society. Darroch's  
  
teleportation gifts granted the covert group access to funds and material resources, as well as a  
  
plethora of "forced recruits" as James King called them. Laura had betrayed Darroch, her  
  
patient, because he was a new mutant and such anomalies were dangerous to human kind. At  
  
least, she had rationalized her actions that way. Truthfully, she'd done it because she wanted  
  
money and because she was more like her brother Larenzo than she was willing to admit.  
  
James King saw the darkness in her easily. Though not a mutant, he was incredibly intuitive,  
  
easily discerning deception and false emotions. He'd recruited Laura Guevara years ago to work  
  
for a then struggling software firm. Now, the corporation they both ostensibly served was one of  
  
the largest on earth. The CEO, a man named McCandless, was beginning to realize that the  
  
sub-levels were no longer under his control. King manipulated his employer with enough finesse  
  
to keep him from interfering.  
  
"Mr. King has asked me to tell you that our leader will be here soon." The servant said  
  
before turning and leaving the office.  
  
Dr. Guevara raised an eyebrow. "How succinct." With a sigh, she returned to her  
  
memories, barely even wondering who King's mystery woman really was. When he'd walked  
  
into her lab with a bag filled with technological and medical miracles, she'd been interested.  
  
Now, after two weeks hearing him blather about a new world order and a future empire, Laura  
  
simply wanted to get out.  
  
She stared at her brother's picture.  
  
"I hope you're working for a saner man than I, mi hermano."  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
Dr. Larenzo Guevara studied a photo of his sister. Her dusky yet pale skin, the color of  
  
his own. Her deep bronze eyes, again, like those he saw through. The curves, lines, and bone  
  
structure nearly identical to his own. They both looked like their mother, a dark-haired Caucasian  
  
their father had met at an unemployment agency. He'd been unemployed, she'd been the helpful  
  
one who found him work.  
  
Marriage had come after almost three years of dating.  
  
The famous Guevara twins two after that.  
  
Larenzo put down the photo and sighed, making a steeple of his fingers as he'd seen his  
  
employer Aaron Sheckt do on occasion. In his mind's stare, he recalled the face of their mother,  
  
her gentle smile and quiet strength, the way one curl of almost black brown hair never stayed in  
  
place but constantly fell across her left eye. She'd been very short, very petite, and having the  
  
famous Guevara twins and come so close to killing her that she'd been read the Catholic Last  
  
Rites twice before her doctor declared the births complete.  
  
In the end, she came home after her children. She never begrudged them the pain they'd  
  
inadvertently caused her. Never, in nearly twenty years of living with her and his father, could  
  
Larenzo Guevara remember a single instant where she spoke above a robust whisper.  
  
Her name was Celia Anderson Guevara, her husband was Marcos Mariano Guevara, they  
  
lived in east Texas and were still very much in love.  
  
His sister never failed to remind him of their mother. Larenzo sighed and shook his head,  
  
making a mental note, saying it aloud fix it in memory. "I need to call home and let mama and  
  
papa know I'm alive."  
  
He hadn't spoken to his parents in nearly two years.  
  
He hadn't seen his sister in almost five.  
  
Dr. Guevara sighed again and rubbed the bridge of his nose, as if he'd been wearing  
  
glasses that pinched. With great effort, he set down his sister's photograph and returned to the  
  
work he'd been doing for Mr. Sheckt.  
  
Several dozen files were spread out across his desk. Each a test result and research  
  
related to that result. A few documents bore a stylized falcon, marking their contents as the work  
  
of Dr. Stephen Falcon, perhaps the most brilliant theoretical geneticist alive. The subject of it all  
  
was Chimera and Aaron Sheckt. They were all but indivisible now in Guevara's mind as he  
  
sorted through pile after pile, scanning an in-depth blood analysis one moment then turning to a  
  
fifty page theorem on genetics the next. Over the course of a year, Larenzo had pieced together  
  
all he could learn of Chimera and what it had done to Sheckt.  
  
Despite his hard work, he'd learned only a fraction of what he needed to know.  
  
Part of what he knew came from former GS agent Lena Blake, who went by Lena Isley  
  
now. That information showed Adam Kane's involvement in disrupting Chimera. It had proved  
  
an invaluable piece of the puzzle, allowing Guevara to focus his search on Genomex and it's  
  
stunning accidental creation of new mutants.  
  
The second most important fact had come from the published works of Stephen Falcon.  
  
Chimera theory had been his brainchild, and Dr. Larenzo Guevara's obsession, but the man had  
  
hidden an important element of the research within coded publications. It had taken Larenzo  
  
some time to realize this and even longer to crack it, but he now knew that Chimera required  
  
three donor subjects.  
  
Dr. Guevara paused in his study of the documents before him and sighed.  
  
"Wherever you are mi hermana, I hope you're working with a less complicated man."  
  
  
  
  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
  
  
  
  
Shalimar studied the wall.  
  
When explosions ripped through the Frost Lake base, only one wall, the infirmary side  
  
wall, had remained mostly intact. Adam speculated that the medical facility had been intended to  
  
double as a bomb shelter, which explained why its walls were still standing while the floor had  
  
been blasted upward and the door rocketed outward. No one expected a subterranean blast.  
  
Though she couldn't be sure, Shalimar thought that this was an outside wall, or at least  
  
near one. The map Katherine had given Emma and Devon seemed to indicate she was right.  
  
Her eyes slid to the man's broken form. After clearing a section of stable floor, they'd  
  
carefully moved him, Adam monitoring his vital signs as best he could without instrumentation.  
  
The infirmary door had all but destroyed the man. Several of his bones were barely more than  
  
splinters and there was evidence of a slow, but steady, internal bleed. He breathed raggedly and  
  
wetly, indicating a punctured lung. Adam was afraid they'd done more damage moving him, but  
  
it had seemed important somehow, as if leaving him where he'd been struck down was a sign of  
  
giving up.  
  
Emma and Adam were watching over the man, as they had been before. Charlotte now  
  
hovered with them. The concern she felt was obvious but not automatic. A depressing numbness  
  
had settled over her some time ago, as if everything were finally catching up to her, and it had  
  
sent her spiraling downward. Her own wound was ignored.  
  
Shalimar noticed how Emma kept rubbing the side of her head then stealing a brief glare  
  
toward Charlotte. Her emotions were giving Mutant X's resident telempath a headache.  
  
"Find a way out yet?"  
  
She turned suddenly and then relaxed. "Brennan. You startled me."  
  
The dimmest of smiles. "Sorry. Guess those eyes in the back of your head are taking a  
  
break." There was an edge to his voice, very faint, but there. "Anything useful? Any way out?"  
  
He stared at the wall before them, as if trying to make it tell him how to escape from the cavern  
  
of collapsed building they'd awakened in.  
  
"My turn to apologize. It's solid as a rock." She thumped it angrily. "Without Jesse, we're  
  
not getting out."  
  
Brennan nodded, as if she'd just confirmed his own assessment, then winced noticeably.  
  
"You okay?" She asked, reaching out to him.  
  
Without answering, he drew away from her. The move was so unexpected and hurtful  
  
that Shalimar immediately stepped back herself. "Brennan, what's wrong?" She asked quietly,  
  
consciously trying to keep the conversation as private as possible. The others were so busy  
  
trying to do what they could for Devon, she didn't want to burden them with any more trouble.  
  
Then her thoughts went to before the explosion, when they'd been so concerned about  
  
Brennan and his head. Fear caught in her throat then dove down into her belly.  
  
Maybe he saw that worry reflected in her eyes, because Brennan forced himself to smile  
  
and say "I'm fine. It's just. . . well, I'm worried about Jesse." He nodded toward the wall. "If he  
  
were okay, he'd already have come looking for us."  
  
His voice held a distinctly depressed note.  
  
Brennan thought Jesse was dead.  
  
That revelation struck Shalimar like a fist and, before she could stop herself, she'd taken  
  
hold of Brennan's coat collar and brought him face to face with her, so close she could either kiss  
  
him or rip his throat out like the jungle felines that were kindred. She glared at him and her eyes  
  
turned a sharp yellow, Feral anger spewing out. When she spoke, it was in a very quiet voice  
  
that the others did not notice but also a voice filled with pure hellfire.  
  
Annunciating every word to maximum clarity, spacing them out so that each was a sentence  
  
unto itself, a universe of singular statement, she said "Jesse. Is. Fine. He. Will. Come. And. He.  
  
Will. Save. Us." Her stare brooked no argument.  
  
In a moment best described as the flashing of a frame, Brennan jerked and seemed to  
  
realized what he'd said without words. He looked horrified at himself. "God, Shalimar, I didn't  
  
mean that." His whisper was desperate. "I'm sorry, I just lost hope there for a second. It's been  
  
so long since the blast."  
  
"No it hasn't." Shalimar replied, releasing him from her iron grasp. "It's been maybe  
  
twenty minutes at the outset, probably a lot less than that."  
  
He nodded but still seemed unconvinced.  
  
"Jesse should have been here by now."  
  
The fire went out of Shalimar, leaving her empty and weak. She hugged Brennan now,  
  
trying not to cry. "Yeah. He should have. But he's okay, because he has to be okay. Because we  
  
can't lose him. Because we can't lose anyone."  
  
Brennan held her tightly, a tear sliding down his face, because he didn't believe things were  
  
going to work out this time. His faith was dead.  
  
From where she knelt, carefully stroking the embers of fading strength inside of Devon  
  
Bowden, Emma turned toward them. Without thinking, she conjured hopeful and peaceful  
  
emotions, then silently adjusted Brennan's thoughts. The moment it was done, she felt terrible  
  
and almost started to apologize.  
  
But she didn't. She could see how her tiny interference had helped Brennan.  
  
'Later,' Emma thought to herself, 'later I'll tell him.'  
  
Suddenly, the infirmary wall phased out and dozens of men and women, all wearing combat  
  
fatigues and carrying weapons swarmed in. They pointed their guns momentarily at each member  
  
of Mutant X before lowering them. "Adam Kane?" A man asked, stepping forward and  
  
producing a leather wallet with an ID card from his armor vest. "My name's Vince Beckley Jr,  
  
CIA agent assigned to the Counter-Para-Terrorism division." He smiled warmly, motioning for  
  
several medics who rushed forward and quickly transferred Devon Bowden to a stretcher.  
  
Soon after, everyone was outside, watching as a helicopter left carrying injured men and  
  
women found in the ruins of Frost Lake, Devon among them.  
  
Jesse gave them a strangely humorous smile. "The calvary arrived. Better late than never,  
  
right guys?" He recounted the events after the bombing for them, from the moment he awoke to  
  
the sudden discovery that dead men walked. He told them that Katherine had been taken on  
  
another helicopter, medics swarming about her in a desperate attempt to stabilize her. Jesse also  
  
made a heroic, though futile, attempt to fend off their joyful hugs and a few thankful kisses from  
  
the ladies.  
  
"Hey, give me a break guys!" He said, though he made almost no effort to escape  
  
Charlotte's arms. "Vince here's the real hero of the hour."  
  
The man blushed brightly, a strange thing to see a CIA agent do. "I wouldn't be here if it  
  
weren't for intelligence our tech guys picked up. They're the real heros. Them and Agent  
  
Bowden." Lines in his face and a sad glimmer in his gaze showed concern. "I hope she pulls  
  
through. Katherine's one of our best."  
  
Agent Beckley was about to say something more, but Adam interrupted. "Before  
  
everything started exploding, Devon said she worked for a woman named Christina." Something  
  
in Adam's tone made the words both statement and question.  
  
"Yes, sir. We all do."  
  
"What does she look like? How would you describe her demeanor?"  
  
"Um, well she has dark hair and these sort of sad eyes." Agent Beckley said, thinking  
  
carefully, "Christina Bergl gives off a vibe, like it wouldn't be a good idea to upset her. I guess  
  
she'd be pretty if she ever smiled. Why?"  
  
"I knew a woman named Christina years ago. She worked in intelligence. Her name wasn't  
  
Bergl then, but I'd be surprised if she hasn't changed it by now." A vague smile, barely a  
  
twitching of his lips. "She never did like her surname."  
  
Emma's eyes narrowed as he spoke but she didn't say anything. In the back of her mind,  
  
she'd known that she wasn't the first woman in Adam's life. Sometimes, though, it had felt like  
  
it. The way he held her in his arms, how they kissed, like they were the only living beings in all of  
  
creation. Emma hadn't wanted to think about ex-girlfriends popping up. Hearing him ask  
  
questions about another woman now. . . it bothered her. She ran a hand through her red hued  
  
hair and tried not to think too much on it. They were together and that was that.  
  
Catching Emma's expression of jealousy out of the corner of her eye, Shalimar started to  
  
say something comforting to her.  
  
Then didn't.  
  
She didn't want to be comforting to her best friend, not about him.  
  
No one said much of anything as they left the CIA agents to their investigation. Whether  
  
or not she'd expected them to be there, Christina had given Agent Beckley orders before he'd  
  
left on the mission. If he found Mutant X, he'd been told to leave them be. He told them to go  
  
home, speaking with all the authority he could manage under the circumstances.  
  
Quietly, together, the team walked away, moving out into a pitch black night. Various  
  
nocturnal fauna made a melody of chirps, hoots, and odd croaks. The surface of Frost Lake  
  
seemed a gigantic mirror, reflecting a beautiful glimmer moon. When they'd gone halfway toward  
  
the car Emma and Devon had arrived by, they turned back to see thin columns of smoke rising  
  
from the ruins of the military base.  
  
They'd survived.  
  
But, God help them, they knew it wasn't over. Not by a long shot.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
***************************END OF PART SEVEN*************************** 


	8. Decisions

Epilogue Decisions Gabriel slept fitfully.  
  
An hour ago, as the moon rose high and haughty, Dr. Guevara had come to check on him,  
moving with her silken, casual grace. He'd felt stronger and, with her help, had managed several deep gulps of icy water. Though she tried to affect a lunar degree of disconnection from her patient, he sensed that beneath the mask lay that singular kindly warmth only mothers and old country doctors possessed.  
  
She'd taken a moment to throw a blanket over Kelly, who'd nodded off in a chair watching over her master. In her sleep, the blonde occasionally muttered meaningless, disconnected words. Gabriel had heard his own name several times and been touched, vaguely, by her continued concern for him.  
  
Guevara had injected him with another dose of a strange medical ooze. It was bluish green,  
somewhat like the ocean in an emotionally drawn cartoon.  
  
Whatever it was, it cooled the fires of destruction that had been burning inside of him. Ever since the day that Dr. Kenneth Harrison informed him he was dying, Gabriel had tried, without success, to cool those death flames himself. Now, to have it done so easily by a woman who was, at least by association, his kidnapper, made him wary and more humbled than ever. It wasn't fair that he be taken by surprise, first by Dr. Clark, now by this Society of Supremacy and it's apparent leader James King.  
  
Whatever black dreams were playing inside of Ashlocke's mind, they ended abruptly as he forced himself awake again. The drugs made him sleepy. He knew he healed and felt incredibly rejuvenated afterward, but in dreams he was vulnerable.  
  
"Kelly?" He whispered into the shadow infested room. An effort was made to call upon Feral night vision but there was nothing, not even the expected pain of a subdermal governor acting against his will. At the least, the Society had a gentler hand than the GSA. Gabriel sat up in bed then tried her name again. "Kelly? I need you to wake up baby. We've got to get out of here. We've got to escape and I need my girl for that."  
  
There was a stirring in the ebony chocked depths of the hospital room. Kelly said something in her sleep that wasn't quite "but it's summer time," though the mushy sounds did want to be that sentence.  
  
As he rose from the bed, setting his bare feet down on the chilled metal floor, Gabriel realized that his restraints had been removed sometime while he slept. Stunned, he raised his hands and practically had to bury his face in them to see their tan skinned perfection. For a moment, he was so dazed by the sudden revelation of freedom that he sat back down on the hospital-like bed and just stared into darkness.  
  
This new revelation didn't make any sense.  
  
"Why the hell would they let me go?" He wondered out loud, for once in his life completely and totally bewildered. "Why? They teleport into my sanctum sanctorum, kidnap me, and then all but chain me to this bed only to set me loose while I'm dreaming?" Gabriel shook his head, at a total loss. "Never mind. Just gotta get away."  
  
He stood and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark. As a Feral, he could have seen with the clarity of a bright spring day. As a Psionic, he didn't even have to fear stubbing a toe, for he possessed psychic radar. As a Molecular, Gabriel could have conjured a ball of glowing energy to banish the shadows to the furthest corners of the room. As an Elemental, he could have started a fire and light a torch.  
  
As a simple man, Gabriel Ashlocke had to wait for his ridiculously dull human eyes to adjust to the gloom. Not being a man of self-deprecating humor, he could honestly count this moment as his most embarrassing and upsetting.  
  
Even after waiting several minutes, he couldn't see well enough in the darkness to find Kelly,  
though he had a fair idea of where to look. Moving quietly at first, then cursing under his breath after banging his knee on something, he made his way awkwardly to Kelly's side. When he found her arm, he shook her lightly. Part of him didn't want to bother her. "Wake up, Kelly.  
We've got a chance. They're not watching us."  
  
In her sleep, she mumbled something which sounded like "the shower is burning," but he couldn't he sure he'd heard that right.  
  
Again he shook her, but Kelly remained deeply asleep.  
  
Gabriel didn't hesitate any longer.  
  
He went for the door and yanked it open.  
  
After only a few steps, he stopped dead and merely stared at his surroundings. Gabriel had expected to find himself in the sub-level of a skyscraper or a large basement.  
  
This wasn't a mere basement. This was another world.  
  
The room outside was an enormous, cavernous interior of pure steel with a spider's web of walkways and support columns and vast structures with no apparent purpose spiraling outward from a central mass of computers. Dozens of people, most wearing lab coats, a few in suits,  
marched about with clipboard or file folders in hand. Everything seemed to shimmer with a polished metal sheen and the air was filled with a barely audible humming noise, as if vast world engines were at work behind sealed walls. The only reminder normalcy was the gathering of five men around a vending machine, laughing disgustingly at a very dirty joke.  
  
There were at least three stories present, but not a single window, which verified what he'd thought before, that he was underground. The air tasted abnormally clean. He looked back over his shoulder at the door of the room he'd just left, a nervous feeling gnawing his thoughts.  
A plate of burnished copper was inscribed with deeply etched letters that read: Iso-Lab Three.  
Memory stirred, reminding him that James King had ordered Kelly put in Iso-Lab Four.  
  
"Mr. Ashlocke. Nice to see you awake."  
  
Gabriel spun to his right and found King standing there, his protruding toad eyes watching him calmly, a large caliber handgun clutched in what was probably a very clammy palm. The man gestured back toward the door. "Go back to bed, Mr. Ashlocke."  
  
"I've slept enough." Gabriel said defiantly, sickened by the fear that surged through him.  
When he'd been a kid, he'd never buckled to authoritarian figures of any stripe. Now, it seemed that the universe was determined to teach him one hell of a lesson in respect.  
  
King smiled darkly, his eyes glistening in the overhead light, reinforcing the amphibian quality of his face. If not for the otherwise unremarkable nature of the man, such as his slow movements and slightly paunch form, Gabriel might have mistaken him for a new mutant. The gun reinforced the certainty that this was just a man. An ugly toad man, but a man nonetheless.  
  
Again gesturing with the weapon, King said "then go back into your room, wake your girlfriend, and bend her over. I don't care what you do. So long as you do it in there."  
  
"Listen toad boy," Gabriel said, his eyes narrowing to bare slits. "I'm Gabriel Ashlocke,  
Patient Zero. I'm a god compared to a waste of skin like you." The bravado was strong and as natural as the contempt that rolled off him in waves. Most men, confronted by such unwavering confidence, might have been tempted to back down.  
  
King did not so much as flinch.  
  
He merely pulled back the hammer of his pistol and kept smiling. "Mr. Ashlocke, my leader will be here soon. Her limousine is almost here. Shortly, you will be meeting her. I can't let you leave until she decides whether or not to keep you." He took aim at Gabriel's knee.  
"Although I was asked to make you as comfortable as possible, not to mention ordered to remove your restraints, she also told me to make sure she could meet you. No matter what."  
  
Now Gabriel faced boundless confidence and pure nerve.  
  
Rather than fight, he turned and went back to his room.  
  
Never before, in his entire life, had he felt more angry and humiliated.  
  
"When this woman shows up," he muttered softly to himself, not wanting to disturb Kelly now that there would not be an escape, "I'm gonna tear her apart with my bare hands."   
Perched on the edge of her bathroom counter, Eve adjusted her cell phone nervously. The soft chiming jingle purred seven times before one of the new interns picked up. Speaking rapidly,  
running words together at times, Eve explained who she was and why she should be allowed to speak to the station head Jonah Tate. When the intern still refused, her voice took on a slightly miffed edge and she had to refrain from hurling insults.  
  
"Just tell him it's me calling, okay? He'll want to talk to me."  
  
There was silence on the line as the intern at last transferred the call.  
  
Again, a faint dinging ring tone filled her ear.  
  
"If they can put a camera in a coffee maker, why in God's name can't they invent a phone that sings instead of ringing. Something, anything, would be better than listening to this stuttering,  
chiming, garbage." Eve muttered under her breath as she switched the phone from one ear to the other, while tapping a finger nervously on the faucet.  
  
There was a click on other end of the line. "Tate here." A quiet man's voice answered.  
  
"Hey Jonah, it's Eve. I've got something to run by you."  
  
"Do you own a watch?" The station head asked, sighing in annoyance.  
  
"You know I do. What does—."  
  
He cut her off by clearing his throat loudly and wetly. Eve's nose crinkled in disgust and mild amusement as he spoke. "Look, Ms. Frost, I'll be straight with you." She resisted making a rude and off-color joke, opting instead to just lean back and wait out the coming rant. Tate coughed several times, probably because he was smoking again, then wispily continued.  
  
"We both know you're a valuable asset to the station," he started, "but you're eccentricities are beginning to outweigh the benefit. Do you understand?"  
  
Eve sighed. "If you would just let me—."  
  
Tate talked over her. "Now, in the past few weeks, you've managed to piss off half our camera crews and cost us nearly a thousand for cab fair."  
  
"That's crazy! I haven't—."  
  
"Please Eve." He said quietly, keeping his words polite. "We've checked the numbers and they are correct. Taxi rides to and from a site, just so you can say a few words before getting back to your anchor's desk, isn't cheap. Our production costs have gone up recently and the reality show we added to the line up last year is tanking faster than my stock portfolio." A pause.  
"What are you giggling at Eve?"  
  
"Nothing Johan," she said as she moved from the counter top to the edge of her bathtub.  
"It's just that, I don't know if you remember this, but we talked about stock tips late last year.  
You mentioned having most of your money tied up in Genomex." She shook her head, an amused grin in place. "Just out of curiosity, what DOA stock did you buy this time?"  
  
There was no answer from Tate.  
  
His silence was anything but comforting.  
  
Eve started speaking quickly, hoping to get her thoughts across before her boss did anything too rash. "Listen Jonah, do you remember about three weeks ago, when I came to you with that story about the missing college girls? I told you there was something major there, that it wasn't just some random snatch and snuff? Remember? I've got that tingly feeling again and don't you dare say that doesn't make you think twice about nagging me about the budget."  
  
A few seconds passed in silence, Eve crossing and uncrossing her legs, just waiting calmly for an answer. She started tapping the bathtub's side. "Come on, Big J." There was a schoolgirl quality to her pleading tone. "We both know I can be a real bitch sometimes, and yes I'm high maintenance, but you can't deny that my hunches are gold mines."  
  
Tate sighed deeply. "I remember those girls. It turned out that nothing bad had happened to them at all. Thanks to your instincts, we were the first news program to break the story that they had, in fact, been picked up by a private detective. It turned out the two were actually fraternal twin sisters, kidnaped nearly twenty years ago, sold to two different families, then just happened to both enroll in the same school and end up best friends. We made a fortune selling our exclusive photographs of them reunited with their real parents." He inhaled, coughed on something that almost had to be cigarette smoke, then said in a miffed voice, "whatever you need,  
it will be available for you by morning."  
  
Face lightening up like a Christmas tree, Eve almost forgot to say thank you.  
  
"You won't regret this Jonah." She started to close her cell phone then brought it back to her ear, "wait, Big J, are you still there?"  
  
"Yeah. Still here."  
  
His response was almost exasperated enough to make her hang up on him. "You never could take a joke Jonah." Rolling her eyes, she said "whatever money you've got in your zombie stock portfolio, take it all out. Buy as many shares of Syria Systems Supply as you can. I've heard rumors they're about to go public with something big."  
  
"You've got a tingle there too?"  
  
"I'm taking a bath, I've got a tingle everywhere."  
  
She heard the man chuckle. "Evie, you never fail to surprise me. I'll make a deal with you.  
If this hunch of your's pans out, the station will keep picking up your transportation bills. Things go south, the buck passes to you."  
  
"I'll see your threat and raise you." Eve said gently, her thoughts running toward the taxi driver she'd just met. "If I can't bring in the story, I'll resign."  
  
"Whoa, now, Eve." Mr. Tate's voice had just jumped several octaves, giving him an almost falsetto sound. "Let's not be hasty."  
  
"I'm not being hasty. I'm being realistic." She turned slightly and started the hot water running, quickly flicking the bathtub's drain shut before standing. Cell phone squeezed between head and shoulder, she started stripping her undergarments off. "Jonah, I'm aware that the station owners aren't exactly pleased by my. . . quirks. I know you've been dealing with a lot on my behalf." Eve smiled faintly as she slid her panties down her smooth legs. "I know, because you like me too much to give me hell over something as stupid as the budget. To be honest, even though you and I made the worst couple ever, you're still a pretty good guy."  
  
"Thanks." Tate said before coughing again.  
  
Eve stepped into the tub, even though it wasn't yet half full. The steam rising half soaked her before her rump touched bottom. "Jonah, why are you smoking again?"  
  
He didn't answer and, in a funny way, that was all the answer she needed.  
  
"The station owners want me gone, don't they?" Eve asked gently, lying back against the tub's frame, letting water rise above her navel. "You've been fighting the good fight, stressing out over it, and now you're smoking again."  
  
"Eve, please." Tate said in his gentle voice that still managed to bring a tiny smile to her lips. "Things aren't as bad as they seem. I've got the guys in suits calmed down. Hell, I'll pass them the stock tip. That'll get them on your good side again." He thought he was being reassuring, but she could hear the worry in his voice. It wasn't difficult to see through Jonah Tate's thin mask of calm. "I'm sure this will blow over like the last time."  
  
Closing her eyes, she held the phone in hand above rising water. Eve leaned forward to switch off the hot water. "Listen, I appreciate the rose-colored glasses view of the world you're trying to give me, but drop it."  
  
Tate sighed. "Things are bad. They do want you gone. I've promised them you could get the ratings up another few points. This new story of your's will do that, I think. Whatever it is." His voice grew muffled as he spoke to someone in the background. "Listen, Eve, I can't talk much longer. There's a problem down in casting."  
  
On the phone, she heard Tate's lighter click. Before she could chastise him for what was obviously a new cigarette, he apologized. "Sorry, but I'm starting to remember why I used to go through several packs per week."  
  
Sighing, Eve rose a little in the water. "Remember what I said Jonah. If I can't bring in another big story, I'm resigning. I'm not letting those suits kick me to the curb first."  
  
"It won't come to that. You just find me a big stick to back up my soft speaking, okay? I want to show the suits how tough my ex-girlfriend is." Tate said affectionately.  
  
"Jonah, I think I might be about to start seeing someone. I've got a feeling it might be something really good." She lay back in the steaming warmth, her muscles unwinding for the first time in hours. A touch of concern filled her words as she said, "I appreciate what you've been doing for me, Jonah. Believe me, I do. I just don't want you to be doing it out of some sort of misguided notion that we're going to get back together."  
  
"Hey, don't worry Evie. I'm committed to making the breakup work."  
  
She sputtered with surprised laughter. "Thanks Jonah, I needed a giggle just then. I was starting to get serious."  
  
Eve was still chuckling a half hour after saying goodbye. After her bath, she was finally starting to feel as if she'd been awake and working all day. She walked into her bedroom naked and collapsed into bed, letting herself be devoured by the soft stain sheets that felt like they were kissing her silky skin. An almost feline purr escaped her lips as, Eve tugged the covers up to her delicate chin and closed the archaic bed curtains.  
  
In less than a minute, she was sleeping a deep and dreamless sleep despite the fact that she'd left the bedroom lights on. Or, perhaps, it was the gentle glow kept nightmares at bay.  
  
Adam had recently brought to his room a desk, computer terminal, and two file cabinets filled to overflowing. When a night grew long and lonely, he poured over the new mutant database. He would try to predict who Ashlocke would target for membership in his Strand organization, which of the children of Genomex might undergo power growth spurts, or who needed their gifts adjusted for survival reasons. Sometimes he got lucky.  
  
More often, Mutant X arrived late but still managed to wrest victory from the claws of defeat. His team was more than a match for the Strand.  
  
There were a few pieces of art lining the free wall directly across from his door. One was a calming ocean print Emma had given him for a present last Christmas. Even before their relationship began, he'd often found his gaze wandering to that image, his nerves soothed by the serenity of waves and beach.  
  
At the moment, while going over computer files, he felt anything but calm. He tried to affect a demeanor of composure, with his feet propped up on a short file cabinet, elbow firmly on the desktop, but he knew himself too well. Peace of mind would not be his again for some time. His every computer search had come up negative. Though Adam fully believed he could fool his genius brain into believing he wasn't worried if he just kept at it, he was far too much of a realist to believe he'd feel calm anytime soon.  
  
The swift and savage appearance of Aaron Sheckt had thrown him. The man was a complete unknown quantity. He'd never heard the name before, nor could he find mention of him in any of his files. Not one word. Adam might have believed the man a hallucination if not for the incredible damage he'd wrought this day. A number of new mutants and two police officers, plus many of Sheckt's own soldiers, were dead. It seemed the man had destroyed his own army to slay Mutant X in a barbarous act of overkill.  
  
Regardless, Adam knew that new efforts would have to be made to secure Sanctuary.  
Though his forces seemed decimated, Sheckt had known the location of Charlotte's safe house,  
he could very well know where all Mutant X's facilities were. Adam had spent the last thirty minutes since arriving home working desperately to insure that everyone in the mutant underground was forewarned in case of an attack.  
  
A part of him couldn't stop thinking it was all spiraling out of control.  
  
He'd let their enemies out think him and it had almost killed his team.  
  
"I should have been able to do more." He whispered to himself, shaking his head sadly.  
"With everything that's happened, how can I face them. They're never going to forgive me." Adam sighed mournfully and pressed his hands over his face, almost as if he wanting to smother himself. "I've failed them."  
  
From behind him, the sound of a door sweeping open. He turned, returning his feet to the floor with a thump, hands going down to his sides. Standing in the doorway, Emma met his eyes and didn't quite smile. She stood, watching him, waiting for him to say something. For a time, it seemed as if neither would ever move nor speak, as if the fabric of time had been rent asunder and all that was left was a single moment that would last eternity.  
  
If this were the rest eternity, this one instant, Adam wouldn't complain.  
  
The very sight of her left him breathless, though she had done nothing more than change into a clean T-shirt and a pair of faded blue jeans.  
  
Emma ended the quiet by clearing her throat. "This is the part where I'm supposed to comfort you and say that it wasn't your fault."  
  
Adam didn't speak. Whatever he'd expected her to say, this wasn't it.  
  
"Of course, then you'd just say that it was and that you had to take all the responsibility for it because you're our leader and you should have been paying more attention." Emma casually stated as she stood there, shaking her head in a funny way, her eyes never leaving his face. "We weren't paying enough attention either but you'd ignore that fact and focus the blame solely on yourself. That's who you are. . . the man in charge. So, in your mind, this is the part where you shoulder the burden and feel all the remorse."  
  
No reply. Emma shook her head and a small smile formed on her lips. She watched him with a mix of love and irritation.  
  
"Now, after a long talk about how you've done the best you could, I'd have to slap you because you'd still be moping, acting like everything that's gone wrong in all our lives is your fault." She walked over and sat down on the edge of his desk, crossing her ankles and turning her head to watch him, sexy without knowing. "For once, Adam, let's not play that script. Let's pretend you've already finished hating yourself for not predicting the unpredictable. You're an amazing man, a terrific leader, and one of the most brilliant minds in this world."  
  
She grinned. "The world's not on your shoulders. You're not Mutant X's Atlas."  
  
Reaching out, she gently touched the side of his face, running the tips of her fingers through the short strands of curled hair behind one ear. "You're not God, you know. We don't expect you to see everything our enemies might do. You do the best you can, and that's all we need.  
Sheckt doesn't know where we are. We're alive and we're safe. Focus on the positives for once. We survived."  
  
"You're right but—." Before Adam could finish, Emma pressed a finger to his lips.  
  
"Hush." Her eyes were bright with affection, jewels more precious than the sapphires they mimicked. "Listen, we took a hit today. A big one. But everything worked out and you have to get that through that brilliant but hard head of your's. We're all okay."  
  
He reached up and took her hand, pulling it gently away from his mouth. "Have I told you lately how much I love you?"  
  
"Yeah, but I never tire of hearing it." Emma grinned and leaned in, brushing her lips against his. "Ready to stop sitting here in the dark, feeling sorry for yourself? Jesse went out for pizza and brought back enough to feed an army. After the day we've had, we deserve it."  
  
"I'll be there in just a minute. I need to make a call."  
  
"Sure you're not going to revert back to the incredible sulk?"  
  
Adam laughed, his first genuine laugh in some time. "Positive." He hesitated, then quietly said, "you always did make me feel better. Ever since the first time we met."  
  
"That's what I love. Making you feel better." Emma smiled and stood up. As she walked out the door, she glanced back over her shoulder. "Adam?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"We really are okay." With those simple words, she walked away.  
  
An odd, sad sort of smile formed on his face. He'd been alone for a long time and now that he wasn't, he was having trouble making himself believe that it was all real. How could a woman like Emma love him? That question haunted him the nights he couldn't sleep. He wanted to go after her right now, but he did have to make a call.  
  
Reluctantly, Adam turned to his computer and brought up a secure communications line. He double checked one of the half dozen messages that had been left on his system by a women named Irene Saunders, a CPT agent, then dialed the agency's number.  
  
Adam waited for some time before it was picked up.  
  
"Counter-Para-Terrorism division, Agent Walter Haladki speaking." The man said as the video link was established. A thin smile crossed his face when he saw Adam's image on his own computer screen. "Dr. Kane, isn't it? It's good to hear back from you. A tad late, but better that than never." He spoke with just the faintest trace of an accent, possibly Bostonian.  
  
Though he didn't know why, Adam immediately liked this man. "I'm just glad to be alive to call back. I'm trying to reach Christina Bergl, your division director."  
  
"I'm sorry, you've just missed her. She left the building a few minutes ago for. . . well, I suppose I can say where since you have been granted security clearance. Director Bergl's on site at Frost Lake, working with our interrogators." Haladki's voice held a barely perceptible harshness, as if he felt personally affronted for being stuck in an office fielding calls rather than being out in the field. It was gone a second later, leaving Adam wondering about his initial liking for this man. "A few of Sheckt's terrorists were found alive and in good enough condition to be immediately questioned. She plans to relay any information to Washington directly."  
  
There was a short pause in the conversation. Haladki sighed. "Sorry if I sound a bit on edge. One of Sheckt's people tried to escape, injured a friend of mine. We usually work together and I keep thinking I should have been there. Maybe if I'd been there, it wouldn't have happened." The man ran a hand through his thinning black hair. "Do you ever get that feeling?  
That, I should have done more feeling?"  
  
"Yes." Adam sighed quietly, "yes, I do." He realized, with some annoyance, that he wasn't going to get all the answers he needed yet. "When should I be able to reach her?"  
  
Agent Haladki shook his head. "I doubt she'll be available for some time. Director Bergl is bound for Washington D.C. tomorrow to discuss the issue of new mutant terrorism. In light of what's happened today, I think there's a chance she can persuade a few senators to come around." The man paused to shift through some papers. "Ah, here it is. She left a disc for you.  
It's all the CIA has on Aaron Sheckt. I'll send the files over our secure server. I'll have to remote verify that your system is safe before final transmission. That's our S.O.P. around here."  
  
Haladki smiled and the change it wrought in his face was amazing. He looked ten years younger at least. "Listen Dr. Kane, just leave your system running. Go enjoy a moment with family or friends. This is going to take an hour or more."  
  
"Alright. Thank you for your help."  
  
"That's what we're here for." Agent Haladki said as he waved him away. "Now go and do whatever it is you Mutant X people do for fun, eh."  
  
Adam stood up and turned off the computer's video and audio links to the CPT, leaving only the silent streaming of pure data. He rose from the desk, left his room, and trusted in his old friend's allies to teach him the secrets of Aaron Sheckt and give him the edge needed to stop the bastard dead.  
  
He walked out of his room and was startled to find Emma waiting for him. "Walk me to dinner handsome?" She asked, grinning and blushing.  
  
"It would be my honor." Adam replied, taking her arm in his.  
  
As they walked away, an unseen machine watched. Tiny camera eye following their steps,  
the insect shaped artifact seemed to debate pursuing them before settling on entering Adam's room. Silent and undetectable, it took a position and waited.  
  
They'd be back soon enough.  
  
"Hey Saunders? Mind if I ask you a question?"  
  
CPT Agent Smythe was hunched over the diagnostic panel of an antiquated GSA stasis pod as he asked, his attentions only half on her reply. Irene glanced up from her own work comparing the genetics of current pod occupants to past records. Over the last twenty minutes since her arrival by ultrasonic transport, Irene hadn't heard him speak more than a half dozen words, so she took his request very seriously.  
  
"What's on your mind?" She asked quietly, her eyes glued to the DNA analyzer in her hand. "I'm kind of busy."  
  
Smythe glanced back over his shoulder. "Yeah, I know." He said dryly, the overhead lights glinting in the darkened pools of burned amber that were his piercing eyes. "That's my question. Why you? I thought the brass had taken you off active duty."  
  
For a moment, anger flared in Irene's heart. Then she realized that only his choice of words sounded like an accusation. His tone was conversational, curious, and calm. She ran her fingers through her hair and drew a slow breath. "I guess I've served my time."  
  
"You make it sound like a prison sentence."  
  
Mildly concerned, still curious, and very calm was the tone of his deep voice.  
  
"It felt like prison." Irene muttered savagely as her scanner winked at her in a deep and frightening crimson. "Damn it. Another one."  
  
Smythe rose from where he was working. "I knew it." He said sternly, his face a mask of frown lines and scars. Deep creases marred what might otherwise have been a handsome visage.  
His skin had the look of rough leather. Irene had always wondered what had happened to this man before his transfer to the CPT, why he looked like this, but she'd never asked. It didn't seem appropriate, especially now as he glared down into a stasis pod.  
  
He turned toward her. "I warned Christina. We needed to watch this place at all times." Unless Irene was mistaken, he was grinding his teeth. "Damn Congress and it's shortsightedness.  
Without funding, how can possibly protect our country?"  
  
Irene didn't feel like debating politics but she felt duty bound to answer his question. "We do what we can and we do the best we can. That's our job. We fight, we die, and we do it because no one else is willing. As agents of the CPT, we took an oath of service to our nation.  
No matter what, he serve."  
  
"Nice speech." Smythe grunted. Striding toward the last stasis pod to be checked, he wore an expression best described as furiously queasy. "Regardless, you and I are in it up to our chins.  
We've got at least seven new mutant criminals missing, including Barry Stirling, Anderson Luster,  
Markus Grant, and Leslie Sherman. And, as an added bonus, at least two incarcerated GSA troops with mutant abilities are MIA too." He glanced down at a clipboard he'd produced,  
seemingly from nowhere. The man had the grace of a shadow and the speed of a drunken sunbeam. "The agents are Skeet Vossberg, recruited middle of last year, and female Molecular named Wendy Stone."  
  
"Defoliation and mass manipulation. I fear for my life." Irene said with a smirk.  
  
"Those two may or may not be dangerous. Stirling is though, and so are Luster, Grant, and Sherman. Anderson Luster murdered his entire family. Markus Grant is a cannibal and our lovely Leslie thinks it's funny to skin children. Compared to them, Kilohertz might qualify for new mutant of the year." At the sight of her shudder, Smythe seemed to soften. "Sorry Ms. Saunders. I thought you'd been briefed."  
  
Irene shook her head, a sick feeling in her stomach. "Those nightmares were being held here but no one thought they needed to be monitored?"  
  
"The President and Christina fought for the money to have this place manned all the time but they lost out. If not for the twice monthly checks, we wouldn't even know anything was wrong." The scarred man was grinding his teeth again. "Like you said before, we have a job to do because no one else is willing."  
  
She was standing over the last stasis pod, her hands on its glass surface. A thick film of dust had gathered on this tube, yet something about it seemed staged for her benefit. Agent Smythe took up his place beside her and started tapping commands into the pod's onboard computer.  
Slowly, a green screen appeared listing vital statistics.  
  
A series of straight, flat lines formed.  
  
"Whose pod is this?" Irene asked, her eyes slipping to Smythe's shadowy profile.  
  
His frown deepened, making his scars even more pronounced.  
  
"It's Eckhart's prison."  
  
She felt her heart skip a beat. The former head of the GSA was dead.  
  
Then Smythe reached out and brushed away dust and grime so that they could see within the glass chamber, into the unholy coffin of metal and mechanism. Here had lain the monstrous progenitor of a people's suffering. Neither CPT agent's expression shifted in the slightest at the sight before them.  
  
After a moment, Irene drew her cell phone and plucked at the numbers. As it started ringing, she saw Agent Smythe's head fall to his chest. He seemed to deflate.  
  
"It's starting again." He whispered.  
  
Irene heard someone pick up her call. "Director Bergl? Agent Saunders reporting." She glanced at Smythe again before turning away from him and away from the empty stasis pod.  
When she spoke, there was an unearthly calm to her voice.  
  
"Mason Eckhart is free."   
The door to Aaron Sheckt's office was open. Lena paused in her walk down the long corridor, her gaze shifting. It stood partially ajar, as if gusted open by an errant breeze. Here in the bowels of Haven, however, there were no breezes and as much to satisfy curiosity as to ensure her leader and partner's safety, she entered.  
  
Though she'd been inside this room before, it's sheer lack of personal touches always shocked her.  
  
There was a desk, an antique affair, which dominated the room. Several file cabinets were nestled into recessed hollows. The walls were beige. A file folder with a bird insignia rested on the desk along with several other papers.  
  
That was the extent of the decor, aside from a few nondescript chairs.  
  
Lena knew there were various items hidden behind wall panels, such as an access terminal for the central Haven computer and a collection of small arms, but she couldn't remember exactly where those things were. As she stepped inside the office, her attention fell upon the folder with the Falcon crest. A cold shiver ran through her as Dr. Falcon's face and history crept swiftly to mind, bringing dread.  
  
Without quite intending to, she sat down on the edge of Sheckt's desk and reached out,  
taking the file into her hands. Part of her felt a desire to rend the folder along with its contents.  
Unlike most agents for the GSA, Lena had known Dr. Stephen Falcon.  
  
The man had frightened her more than she cared to admit. Even now, eyes fixed to his avian crest, she felt a slithering unease constricting her heart.  
  
She opened the folder in spite of fear.  
  
Lena Isley-Blake, formerly a GS agent, currently a terrorist using her mother's half of her surname rather than her FBI G-man father's contribution, was not the kind of woman to hide from anything. She especially wasn't going to hide from a man who was dead. Except, a nagging part of her subconscious kept reminding her that Falcon had been considered even more brilliant than Adam Kane.  
  
Inside the dossier were a number of sheets of a printed computer paper with the corporate logo of Genomex stamped in glossy black ink at the top. Line after line of clinical data trailed down each page, leaving Lena with a headache.  
  
Next came a series of charts and graphs, each representing a different estimate regarding her leader's various biological systems. A frown crossed her face, her brow wrinkled, as she read some of the numbers. While far from being wise in the world of medical knowledge, even a complete novice could recognize that the rapidly diminishing lines, pie charts, and bar graphs all lent to a dismal picture. She had thought Sheckt's health improving, but unless she was misinterpreting the information in front of her, the opposite was true.  
  
Aaron Sheckt was dying and doing it fast.  
  
And Guevara still didn't know how to stop it.  
  
"My God." Lena uttered as she turned to another set of estimates. "If Guevara's right, he only has a few more months. Not even half a year." She seemed to go slightly numb as she thumbed through the rest of the document, fast approaching the last page. Before this moment,  
Lena had never actually believed that he could die. Though she'd only known Aaron Sheckt for two months, the time passed since Gabriel's assault on the GSA, he had become so important to her every waking moment that the idea of his death boggled her mind. It had been his guidance that had helped her to heal after losing so many friends.  
  
More important still, it was his strategy and flawless tactics that brought her revenge on Kenneth Harrison and Morgan Fortier. Only he had understood her desperate need for their brutally painful deaths.  
  
"This can't be happening." Her voice seemed shaky and Lena was surprised to find that her hands were quivering. With but the flick of a wrist, she would be reading the final summary of Guevara's research, a fact which should have filled her heart with joy but instead brought only a darkness. The brilliant doctor's analysis was desperately bleak. "I won't let him die. No matter what it says, I won't let him die."  
  
She turned the page. A single paragraph had been neatly typed and centered.  
  
The words loomed like bombing planes overhead.  
  
Lena closed the folder and replaced it on Aaron's desk.  
  
"It doesn't matter." She said confidently to herself before suddenly breaking into an uncontrolled yet strangely emotionless session of sobbing. Her reptilian Feral nature refused her the right to properly feel passion, to lose herself in the sensations of being alive. Fear was blunted by steely logic, love dimmed by temperate blood, grief diminished along with joy and wonder.  
Only rage remained potent in one such as herself.  
  
Sitting there on her leader's desk, her chest heaving slightly with the force of her tears, Lena did not truly feel the pain she knew she should. Her body instinctively reacted as it should, but her heart and soul were barely cognizant of the sensation of sorrow.  
  
The cold-blooded reptile mind whispered a siren's song filled with revenge.  
  
"Adam Kane did this." Lena's eyes fixed on the file folder, the Falcon crest, and she bowed her head. Speaking as if in prayer, she whispered "even if it costs my own life, I will avenge you Aaron Sheckt. I will."  
  
She rose from the desk and turned to leave.  
  
Sheckt was standing there in the open doorway, rage and hate burning in his gaze like a Gorgon's stare. Lena froze in place. His mouth twisted into a lunatic's grimace. "It would seem that the good doctor's report isn't the only bad news."   
Charlotte delivered her punch line, "I said to the guy, if that's the best you've got, don't quit your lousy day job," and everyone laughed, even Shalimar. The joke was one drawn from a personal experience, which was part of the fun, and she had such a deadpan delivery that it cracked Mutant X up easily.  
  
Snickering around a mouthful of pizza, Brennan nudged Jesse. "I don't care if you did see her first, the new girl is mine."  
  
Jesse sipped at a can of soda. "No way static cling."  
  
"Boys, boys, please." Charlotte said in the voice of a queen, catching their attention. A smile was on her face. "Continue fighting over me."  
  
That response brought a fresh round of laughter. After the long, dark day, Mutant X needed to laugh and smile and push the pain back into a deep corner of their minds until they could deal with it. Dinner had begun with Jesse cracking several lame jokes that broke the pall of worry and unease they'd felt since first encountering Sheckt's killers. Slowly, everyone had found something to say or do that brought a smile.  
  
It felt like the beginning, when the team was first made whole by Brennan and Emma's arrival. Having Charlotte sitting at their table, grinning and giggling, helped to reinforce that feeling of deja vu.  
  
'Or perhaps,' Adam thought as he ate the unhealthy cheesy Italian derived food, 'it's a case of presque vu.' Though a far less common sensation, that feeling of knowing that something would soon come to pass, of almost seeing it, felt more accurate here.  
  
Hadn't Charlotte Cooke been part of Mutant X thirty years forward? Hadn't she been one of the team in that hell of Eckhart's making? Adam watched her, thinking about the anger that had all but consumed her just a year ago and contrasting that woman with the one sitting at his table now. Aside from the seemingly trademarked razor tongued wit, she seemed to have let go of the thirst for revenge.  
  
Watching her gave him hope for another new mutant who had once been a part of his plans for good. As the meal came to a close, Adam felt a weight falling on his shoulders. The time had come to discuss what they all knew had to be discussed. It was time to face their fears and formulate a plan.  
  
"I'm getting to old for this." He grumbled coldly.  
  
Emma leaned down and kissed his cheek, her hand squeezing his shoulder comfortingly.  
"You're doing that brooding scientist thing again." She said quietly so that the others, who were clearing plates, wouldn't hear. "This isn't the time for blame Adam. We've got a new enemy and we need you ready to lead. We need you." She lightly caressed his face, tracing the worry lines of his forehead before kissing him again, this time on the lips. "And I need you too."  
  
Without another word, she turned and took a stack of plates from Charlotte who was limping a little on her injured leg.  
  
"Thanks." Charlotte said with haggard grin before sitting back down. Although the piece of shrapnel that had stabbed her didn't do any major damage, it did make walking painful.  
  
Half-smiling back, because she still wasn't quite sure how she felt about having Charlotte in Sanctuary again, Emma waved away her gratitude. "Just rest okay? This will only take a minute to get everything cleared off. Then we've got a bad guy's defeat to plan." She observed Adam for a moment before nodding, apparently satisfied that he wasn't relapsing into depression. Of all the men she'd ever dated, he was the most sensitive and caring, but also the most self-deprecating and introspective.  
  
After the remains of dinner were banished, Mutant X and Charlotte returned to their chairs and waited for Adam to return from his room. When he came, he held many sheets of computer printout. Carefully, almost hesitantly, he spread out the intelligence file Christina had given them on Aaron M. Sheckt along with a detailed report on what Gabriel Ashlocke did while they were fighting for their lives. Graphic images of fire, death and destruction glared up at them like nightmares made manifest. They each read through a handful of documents before meeting one another's faces. The information before them wasn't good.  
  
It might have ruined their appetites had they not so recently finished dinner.  
  
Shalimar picked up a sheet and read over it again before speaking, her stare locked on Adam. "The CIA doesn't know anything about Sheckt. That's what your friend's file basically amounts to, right?" She asked calmly, though there was a hint of exasperation in her voice.  
  
"That's not exactly true, Shal." Jesse said with a smirk as he pointed down at a page in front of him. "According to this, he didn't exist until two years ago. No social security number,  
birth certificate, tax records. . . the man was either born on the street and never entered into the system or the name he's going by is a very clean alias. Or he really doesn't exist and we were all nearly killed by a figment of our collective imaginations."  
  
Holding his head in his hands, Brennan snorted. "Great. Next time we go out on a mission,  
the Easter Bunny and Santa can kick our ass."  
  
Siting across from him, Emma chuckled dryly. In the time it had taken her to read over just a few pages of the CPT file, her positive attitude had faded dramatically. "As disturbingly funny as that image is Brennan, we have to consider every possible angle with this guy. I never sensed him when I was with Devon in the Frost Lake base. Not once. I felt general impressions,  
something dark and malevolent, but I never touched Sheckt's mind. Psionically speaking, there's a slim chance he really is someone's bad dream."  
  
Charlotte Cooke, who had been quiet until this moment, pointed toward a picture taken at the safe house where she'd lived. Two of her friend's bodies were visible in it, though someone had covered them in simple white shrouds. "My vote's on real guy with a fake name. No way is he's just a living delusion. The way his people acted, I think he used to be government."  
  
Everyone turned their faces to Adam.  
  
Even Emma.  
  
"She's got a point." Jesse said, picking up another sheet of paper. "What little Christina did have on Sheckt indicates a background in intelligence. The first time anyone got wind of him was shortly after one our early missions, back before Brennan and Emma joined up. Look at this date. It's less than two days after we raided that Genomex lab Eckhart was working out of.  
Remember the Cascade Mountain base?"  
  
He passed the sheet of paper to Adam, who read it quickly and nodded. "You might be on to something Jesse. Sheckt's first known terrorist act was an attempted bombing of an FBI office not far from that lab. No one's certain why he did it, but several men being held for questioning at the time were never accounted for. Sheckt claimed responsibility in an e-mail." He frowned and laid the document back down on the table. "It was untraceable and the CIA's best computer experts still don't know how he did it."  
  
"According to this," Shalimar added as she thumbed through a particularly thick stack of information the CPT had compiled, "the only way American intelligence has been able to even belatedly track his movements is by keeping tabs on his known associates." She held up a picture of Duncan Ladd, the new mutant torturer who'd saved their lives by arranging for nearly half the bombs set under Frost Lake to be defused. "He's a recent addition to Sheckt's private army." She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "The psycho used to be on our side."  
  
Still holding his head, alternately rubbing at his temples and grimacing from the pain, Brennan tried not to let the migraine he was feeling interfere with his speech. He tapped a finger against the paper in front of him. "According to this, the FBI managed to uncover one of Sheckt's bases just after it had been abandoned. They found some very weird stuff. There was a notebook with his name written over and over. Based on where it was found, they think Sheckt was the guy doing the writing."  
  
"Why would anyone write their own name like a mantra?" Charlotte asked, one eyebrow arched high, as if to say that she'd never heard of anything more bizarre.  
  
Adam stood up. Though he seemed tired, there was a warmth and confidence in his voice when he spoke. "Right now, we haven't got enough information to figure Sheckt out. Here's what we do know: First, he wants us dead. Second, he's extremely well informed about us. He knows our weaknesses and can predict our actions. Third, Sheckt seems very unwilling to engage us directly." He glanced at Emma, just to admire her angel's face. She smiled and he couldn't help grinning back.  
  
"Based on what Katherine told us," Adam continued before he lost his train of thought completely, "Aaron M. Sheckt is private to the point of total excess. Maybe he is the psionically projected persona of some new mutant enemy, maybe he's just extremely paranoid. Either way,  
he's a threat."  
  
He paused again. This time, he looked to Charlotte, concern coloring his tone. "The last thing we know about Sheckt is that he's after you."  
  
Everyone stared at her as she nervously shifted in her seat.  
  
Adam's expression softened. A thin smile warmed his face. "That's why I want you to stay here for now. I've got people working on securing the safe houses but, for the time being, we can't trust them. Until we can be certain that there hasn't been any further compromise of the mutant underground, you have a place with us Charlotte."  
  
Charlotte stared at him, her mouth slightly agape. "You mean, you actually want me to stay here? With you?"  
  
"I think 'want' might be a strong word." Shalimar said, but she was grinning as she spoke and quickly added. "Yeah, Charlotte, we want you to stick around a while. You're not safe alone. Besides," she said, her eyes slipping for just a moment to Emma before going back to Charlotte's pleasantly surprised face. "It'll be nice having another woman in the house. The men won't be able to outvote us on movie night anymore."  
  
Everyone watched Charlotte for her reaction. Even though it was in her best interest, she did have the right to refuse their help. Sheckt's attack on her safe house proved that they couldn't guarantee her safety and, although they were all certain that Sanctuary was safe, there was a chance they couldn't protect her even in their own home.  
  
After a moment of thought, she stood up and shook Adam's hand over the table.  
  
"One condition: I want to be a full fledged part of the team."  
  
Adam nodded. "We can live with that."   
James King stood in the garage. He'd been standing for quite some time and had developed a terrible ache behind his right knee. Sore muscles and cramps abounded. Still, he remained,  
faithful as the dog that dies on a master's grave. He was waiting for the arriving limousine from Jacob's Memorial Hospital.  
  
"More like Jacob's Memorial Fire now." The man joked to himself.  
  
The vehicle pulled in moments later. A man in a black suit, the driver, stepped out and quickly proceeded to the back of the vehicle to open the car door.  
  
From darkness she stepped, wearing clothes that Dr. Guevara had found for her and sent along with the car. King was struck almost senseless by her beauty, just as he had been the day they'd met, when he found her dying in an alleyway.  
  
"Welcome to your new home," he said as she adjusted her dress. "My dear Jane Doe Number Five."  
  
"Spare me the sniveling King." The woman rasped as she stood in the cavernous garage,  
her dull brown hair hanging about her head in uneven, sweeping locks that brushed her bare shoulders. She wore a tube top of black leather that wrapped around her chest snugly, a pair of matching hip-hugging jeans, and heavy snake-skin boots. "And call me by my proper name or refer to me as mistress."  
  
"As you wish, my dear mistress."  
  
The woman was shorter than him, slight in build and seemed smaller still due to the paleness of her skin and the cadaverous quality of her appearance. She'd been fed by IV for two weeks while lying near death in a coma. Only now was she strong enough to stand on her own again, to speak with her true voice rather than her Psionic tongue.  
  
Her eyes bore holes into King's soul. He could not bear her gaze for long and twitched under it like a bug stabbed through by a pin and about to be mounted in a trophy case. Head bowed, he lead her into the underground facilities. "We're still having to operate here in secrecy," the words felt torn from him by her vicious silence. "Our CEO is not aware of the true function of these sub levels."  
  
"But he is beginning to suspect, isn't he?" The woman asked darkly, throwing a glare at him which sent shivers down his spine.  
  
Though she had been inside King's mind for some time, he feared her. She knew secrets.  
Some of them, she'd given to him as payment to buy his loyalty. Those technological and medical miracles would make the company billions. Yet, when he heard her true voice, slightly rough with disuse, he could not help but wonder if he'd made the right choice when he saved her life.  
  
He'd found her in an alleyway, dying, her DNA shredded by some unknown illness or phenomena with which doctors knew no cure. The coma had healed her.  
  
"Is Ashlocke here?" She asked.  
  
"Yes, mistress. We have him in Iso-Lab Three."  
  
Her hand shot out and gripped his shoulder with the power of a hydraulic vice.  
  
"Take me to him." Kelly had left the room earlier so Gabriel was not surprised by the sound of the door swishing open. When he turned to ask the lovely blonde if she were feeling better, he found himself rendered speechless.  
  
The mystery woman had arrived.  
  
The first thing that struck Gabriel was her height, or lack thereof. She was petite, seemingly frail. Long strands of black hair hung down to just graze her shoulders, her skin seemed sickly ashen. He tried to focus on her mind but could not, of course, because he still bore the indignity of a subdermal governor. The man gave her a look, dismissing her much like he would an insect.  
  
"You're not much to look at, are you?" Gabriel said coldly.  
  
She smiled. "This from the petty tin god?"  
  
The question sent a surge of adrenaline flowing through Gabriel's body and, had his powers been active, he would have killed her where she stood with a thought. If he believed he could have crossed the space between them without being stopped, he would have done so.  
Unfortunately, he could do nothing but glare, because she had the toad man James King at her right side, his pistol pointed at Gabriel's heart.  
  
"Go to hell." He snarled, forcing himself to remain almost perfectly still as he spoke.  
Without his powers, a bullet would kill him easily.  
  
Perhaps sensing what he wanted to do to her, the woman broke into dark laughter and threw her head back. Of all the things she could have done, this hurt Gabriel most. It was a blow to his pride.  
  
It got worse.  
  
Her laughter turned to cruel words. "This the great and mighty Ashlocke? Laid low by a subdermal governor and reduced by a single woman to petty human insults?" She came closer,  
until her face was mere inches from his own. Utterly fearless, she breathed out one word.  
  
"Pitiful."  
  
Gabriel lunged forward but was almost instantly shoved back by a crushing telekinetic fist that seized his body and held him against the wall. Struggling, he only then began to understand the danger he was in.  
  
Regarding him with detached coolness, the woman continued. "I'm not that unlike you,  
Mr. Ashlocke. I want things, crave things, and to hell with anyone who dares get in my way.  
Ruthlessness and a methodical nature just make my work easier. My genetics further ease the taking of what is desired. You, for instance."  
  
She sauntered to Gabriel's cot and lay back on it, staring at the ceiling, seemingly ignoring the self-proclaimed god's struggle against her powers. Yet, her focus was always on him. He could feel her mind reaching out and burrowing into his own. Without his powers, there was nothing he could do to repel her invasion and, for the first time, he began to understand why his victims screamed sometimes at a telepathic invasion. She learned everything about him in mere seconds, every fear and every memory.  
  
In the process of raping his brain for the information, she made him endure some of the worst parts over and over again. Gabriel tried and failed to make the images go away.  
  
"What's wrong? Bad memories?"  
  
The woman grinned frostily. Slowly, she ended the assault. Gabriel's eyes, which had blurred with tears, began to clear and he focused them on her. She was watching him. "We can be allies, you and I. We both want the same things. Power, pleasure, and plenty of servants to provide us with both." Her face smiled but her eyes failed to learn of the display. They remained obdurate, unsympathetic, utterly stony.  
  
"You should think about it. I propose you join me, merge your Strand forces with my Society of Supremacy. Our ostensible goals are the same so the rabble won't question the union.  
At least, not much." She rose from the cot. "If you say no, I won't cure your fatal flaw. I won't make you invincible. I will allow you to diminish and die."  
  
He did not dare respond to her threat.  
  
Though desperation beseeched him, Gabriel refused to beg her for the cure.  
  
Moving to his beside, the woman stood and watched him with a Gorgon's glare. "Once so haughty, so certain of your own power; now reduced to pitiable silence. How the mighty Ashlocke has fallen." Her cold laugh made Gabriel's stomach turn. "I'll give you some time to think about my proposal. Once you've come to your senses, I'm sure you'll gladly get down on your knees and thank me."  
  
As she walked away from him, the telekinetic force holding Gabriel against the wall evaporated. Sprawled on the floor, his chest bruised and aching, he hated this woman. He hated her more than he had ever hated anyone else.  
  
She was mere millimeters from the door when he spoke. "Wait."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
Silence.  
  
A glance over her shoulder. "You can have life or you can have self-respect. Which do you value more highly?"  
  
Not waiting for an answer, she walked out of the room, never having given him so much as a name. Body hurting, he returned to his cot and lay there, alone again with fear. His heart beat steadily in his chest. He'd been saved by the doctors but they had condemned him to fatal weakness. Human weakness. The subdermal governor bound to his spine brought unwelcome memories of his insignificant childhood.  
  
Those recollections soon gave way to the memory of the first sign of power, the first moment of manifestation. He'd jumped off a roof and landed without injury.  
  
He remembered his parents. Strange to think of them, but he did. They had been arrogant and hadn't treated him with the proper respect. He recalled their faces when he killed them.  
How long after that before Genomex scientists came to collect him? He wasn't sure.  
  
A few more memories fluttered through his mind. First kiss, first sex when he got free of Adam's stasis pod. The kills that followed mother and father. Eckhart's face at the end, as he was shoved inside a pod of his own. He remembered being inside Shalimar's mind and how much he'd wanted her, mind and body and especially soul.  
  
Unfinished business. That was what made him call out to bring the woman and her promises of a cure back. He did not scream for her, did not let himself sound as desperate as he was, but he did call out for her return.  
  
"I want it all!" He roared sitting up in the bed. "I want what I'm owed!"  
  
He did not go to the door; that would have seemed too needy.  
  
Gabriel had unfinished business. World domination. Revenge. Kelly. Yes, he just had unfinished business. He wasn't afraid. He wasn't.  
  
No. He wasn't afraid of death.  
  
A god had no reason to fear death and he was a god.  
  
Yes. He was a god. He wasn't afraid.  
  
The woman entered the room with a hypodermic in hand. She coldly grinned, her eyes narrowing to slits. "I thought you'd make the right decision. You're arrogant to call yourself divine, but just smart enough not to believe it."  
  
Gabriel did not contradict her.  
  
As she injected him with the medicine that would cure him, the woman said "you've made the right decision. Welcome to the Society of Supremacy, Mr. Ashlocke. My name is Valerie Curio, but you can call me mistress."  
  
Her cackle made him shiver.  
  
Almost an hour after the conference on Sheckt, Adam had spent some time explaining Sanctuary's various security grids to Charlotte. Now that she would be staying with them, it seemed appropriate. He'd helped her settle into a spare room that had, until recently been used for storing the Dojo's components. Jesse would soon be reassembling the holographic system in a newly built room; Charlotte needed training.  
  
With the young woman fast asleep, Adam himself walked into his bedroom with every intention of falling onto his bed. Just inside the doorway, however, he stopped.  
  
Someone had done a little redecorating.  
  
A set of shelves had been installed on the wall directly across from the door. Before, it had been bare but now there were several rows of aromatic bath oils and lotions, as well as several varieties of calming incense. Emma's things.  
  
A vase of flowers had been placed on his desk and a number of new books, mostly on meditation, were now conspicuously sharing space with science volumes. Adam looked around the room and saw other additions. There was a pseudo-shrine in one corner, more potted plants,  
several pieces of glass art. He spotted two framed pictures hanging on the wall: a group shot of the team and one that Jesse had taken of Adam and Emma.  
  
He remembered the day it was taken. The team was celebrating a victory against the legions of the GSA. Brennan had convinced them to do their happy dances at a new amusement park that had just opened on the outskirts of the city. It was Shalimar who brought the camera, though Jesse ended up taking more pictures.  
  
Adam had beaten a rigged game and won an enormous stuffed teddy bear. As much to rid himself of the embarrassingly cute creature as to make her smile, he'd given it to Emma. Jesse had caught her reaction on film. Standing in the doorway, looking at that picture of her smiling at him with shining bright blue eyes, Adam wondered how they could ever have ignored their feelings for each other.  
  
He stepped into the room , feeling at peace for the first time since hearing the name Aaron Sheckt, and sighed blissfully. "You did all of this while I was talking to Charlotte?" As he spoke,  
he turned toward his bed.  
  
Emma was sitting on the edge; she'd been waiting for him.  
  
Her hair stuck wetly to her neck and glistened in the light. She'd taken a shower earlier,  
changed into a wispy nightgown. A glow seemed to emanate from her perfect pink skin. As Emma stood up and crossed to him, she moved with such elegance and beauty that for an instant,  
Adam could not breath. Her gentle yet bold gaze made his heart pound.  
  
"You're not angry, are you?" She asked quietly.  
  
"No. Not at all."  
  
He caressed the underside of her chin, something that made her practically purr with contentment. It was a trivial thing. Most people wouldn't have thought of it. Adam alone knew how much the simple gesture affect her.  
  
Standing here, in a moment of perfect happiness, he had an epiphany. Suddenly his life came into focus. Everything changed in that instant, because Adam knew that he would never stop loving this woman. Emma had awakened something in him that he'd long believed dead.  
She'd brought back his love of life itself. When he spoke, the words were as much a surprise from him as they were for her.  
  
"When Sheckt is in custody, I'm leaving Mutant X." Adam said, the truth in his words too plain to ignore. "There have been too many close calls lately. Too many near misses. Emma, I want you to come away with me. I've been preparing a place, no one knows about it but me. It's perfect for an escape."  
  
Emma stared at him in stunned surprise. For a moment, she uttered not a sound. Then, as if waking from a dream, she said "that's a big step. A really big step. Almost like marriage."  
  
Adam touched her face and leaned close. He whispered into her ear.  
  
"I'm an old man, Emma. You're moving too fast for me."  
  
She giggled and shook her head. "You're talking about us running away together and you say I'm moving too fast?" Gently, she pulled him toward her, toward the bed. They fell back on to it a moment later and held each other. Emma snuggled against him as he slipped an arm around her. "You're half right, I guess. But I don't care how fast or slow things go, as long as I have you. For the first time in my entire life Adam, I feel truly loved."  
  
They kissed softly at first.  
  
Only at first.  
  
Aware of nothing, save each other, Adam and Emma did not notice the electronic surveillance device that had hidden behind the computer monitor earlier. It crawled out of the shadows on six wire legs and climbed a wall. Moving with the sickening depravity common in cockroaches, the piece of artifice was soon on the ceiling. Guided from afar by the hands of an enemy, it moved forward until it rested directly over their bed.  
  
Tiny cameras watched as a kiss turned to something deeper and more passionate.  
  
As they made love. . .  
  
. . .another made hate.  
Buried beneath many tons of sand and rock, the Haven base was the perfect facility to operate from. It had been constructed by a wealthy man with paranoid beliefs. He'd feared a third world war was imminent and, at considerable cost, he'd brought this place into being for his own safety.  
  
Standing before the video monitor, watching as the man he hated rumpled sheets with the lovely Emma DeLauro, he frowned deeply. At his sides, his hands were clenched into fists and his nails were biting into the flesh of his palms, drawing blood.  
  
He turned away and met Lena's gaze.  
  
"Mutant X lives. My informants have confirmed the destruction of the Frost Lake base but,  
it would appear that someone disarmed nearly half our explosives." His face was masked in shadows, hiding his expression. "Katherine Bowden betrayed us."  
  
Lena was stunned, but not by what he'd said.  
  
As he stepped out of darkness, she saw his face.  
  
He was smiling.  
  
"As I expected."  
  
"You. . . you knew?" She asked in an awed voice.  
  
A twisted chuckle was her initial answer. "No. But I expected something to go wrong. I always hope for the best while planning for the worst. Much like your previous employer, Mason Eckhart. Though I do hope I've made a better leader than he." Moving gracefully, he reached up to trace the curves of Lena's face. "I can scarcely believe I have such a prize as you in my life."  
  
She didn't smile, but her face seemed to grow more inviting. "You flatter me."  
  
"Not at all. I merely state the truth. You, Lena Isley-Blake, the famed reptilian GS agent.  
Eckhart could not have appreciated you as I do. He saw only your abilities and your last name,  
your father's name, and no more." His eyes watched her face for a reaction to his words and was rewarded with a small, but genuine, smile.  
  
"He always called me Agent Blake. That was how my name was on the Genomex payroll.  
I gave them my father's name alone rather than include mother's. They were still together then." Her expression grew cold. "It's no longer fitting. That woman, Agent Blake, isn't really who I am anymore. The mission has changed. My mother's name is better for the woman I've become."  
  
He nodded. "It's softer, more feminine, than Blake. Yet, it does lack a certain tonal quality.  
Lena Blake sounds a tad ferocious while Lena Isley sounds more seductive."  
  
She leaned in and kissed him. "That's how it should sound to you. Especially now."  
  
Instantly, Lena knew she'd said the wrong thing. Without warning, his hand struck out but stopped less than a millimeter from her face. He saw the shock in her eyes and spun away from her, disgusted with himself, barely managing to say "I shall not be pitied," before slamming a fist into the monitor, shattering an image of his most hated enemy and Emma DeLauro.  
  
"I am dying." He said in a faint whisper, trembling with humiliation. "That is suffering enough, I cannot bear your pity in addition. Leave me."  
  
Lena Isley left her leader's office close to tears.  
  
Alone, the man she called Sheckt took a seat at his desk. For a time, he regarded his hand,  
which had shards of broken glass imbedded between the knuckles. The astringent reek of ozone and smoke filled the room as something melted inside what was left of his enormous video screen.  
He sighed and drew out each dagger with bare fingers, cutting himself again and again.  
  
When his hand was glass free again, he bandaged it. Then he pressed a button mounted under the desk's edge. A secure communication line opened to section of Haven no one knew about but him.  
  
"Send the first two." He uttered emotionlessly into the air.  
  
Several minutes passed, during which time he opened a drawer and took out a pad of paper. Methodically, he began writing a name over and over again in thick, block capitals,  
printing in much the way a small child might.  
  
AARON M SHECKT.  
  
He drew this many times in the few minutes before his office door opened and two men walked in, dragging another, frailer man between them. One had to clear his throat to gain Sheckt's attention, for this bizarre task claimed all his focus and concentration. Had anyone asked, he would have had no clear answer as to why he wrote his own name repeatedly. Nor could the man have explained it's deep importance to him or why it's creation ruled his mind.  
  
"Sir?" The man who'd cleared his throat asked in a deferent tone, barely above an angel's whisper. He gave his second a nod and the other man joined him in heaving forward the third who had been suspended between them.  
  
He hit the floor hard, collapsing to his knees, and did not try to rise or even to look up into the face of his captor. This man stayed down, though he visibly shook. Either with fear or rage remained to be seen, but of certainty was the fact that this person had never bowed to anyone before. His straight back and just slightly down turned face, the way his breathing stayed even,  
almost stiffly so, proved him a man of stern personality.  
  
Without fully intending to, Sheckt started laughing. "Oh please, don't pretend to be cowed old man. We both know you too well to be fooled."  
  
From the floor, the man's head shot up at the sound of his captor's voice. Their eyes met and icy serpents of dread ran through him. Kneeling there, gazing up into orbs of a murky sadistic sapphire, the exact same color as his own, Mason Eckhart felt his chest seize tight and his heart simply stop. For a time, he drew no breath, and only as darkness began to creep into the edges of his sight did his pulse finally return while a soothing gasp filled him near bursting.  
  
He tried to say something, moving his lips to form random words, but nothing came save the toneless squeak of pure stunned shock. Eckhart suddenly spun around and tried to escape but did not get more than five steps from Sheckt's desk. The two men who'd brought him took hold his arms again and forced him down into the carpet.  
  
"I'm hurt." Sheckt muttered quietly, rising from behind his desk. "You seem afraid, old man, and that truly hurts me. Truly." He tapped the pad he'd been feverishly writing in earlier.  
"Have you ever played a game called 'anagrams,' old man?"  
  
Picking up the pad in one hand and a pen in the other, Sheckt started to jot down something new. "You take a word, a sentence, even a name, and you rearrange the letters until they spell something new. It's not the easiest game in the world, because it's so hard to make anything that makes sense."  
  
He finished writing and tore the top sheet of paper off the pad. "But sometimes you get lucky." Sheckt handed it to Eckhart.  
  
Mason looked down and read his captor's name, with difficulty for every letter had been crossed out.  
  
AARON M. SHECKT  
  
On the line below, using each letter from the name before, was written his own name.  
  
MASON ECKHART  
  
Eckhart stared up at the man named Aaron Sheckt. "You can't be alive. Falcon said you couldn't have survived alone. Not with the amnesia."  
  
Sheckt shrugged. "I went through a lot of suffering to get to where I am now. Of course,  
it wasn't until two weeks ago that my purpose in life started becoming clear. Echoes from the future led me to my past, to Genomex." He smiled the strangest smile, gentle and caring but harshly angry. "On that road of discovery, I chanced upon a former follower of yours, Agent Lena Isley-Blake of the GSA."  
  
"Agent Blake is alive?" Eckhart asked.  
  
"Of course. Did you expect such an extraordinary woman to perish at the hands of a false god like Ashlocke?" He shook his head and chuckled. "Old man, do you have so little faith in your followers?"  
  
Eckhart tried not to stare at the man but he couldn't help it. Their faces were so similar, so almost perfectly mirrored. Age had barely touched this man, marking him as a young thirty, with hair dark and wavy. When he moved, there was something unsettling in the familiarity of it, as if he stared into a mirror but one from a fun house, the reflection made different yet the same. Still disbelieving, Eckhart muttered "this is some sort of dream."  
  
Sheckt laughed deeply, his eyes watering with mirth.  
  
"You're not real." Eckhart said calmly, rising from the floor at last, certainty stilling his face and bringing a defiant timbre into his voice. "You are nothing more than an illusion. A fabrication." He stared into the man's face, met his eyes completely. "Aaron M. Sheckt does not exist. He never did. You're a fiction."  
  
Sheckt wasn't smiling now. "Watch your tongue old man."  
  
"You're a lie, a nightmare. Nothing but smoke and mirrors. A—."  
  
The blow took Eckhart by surprise because he'd managed to half convince himself that he was hallucinating or dreaming in his stasis pod. Collapsed on the floor, he stared up at this man who should not exist. "What are you?"  
  
Face gone cold as stone, Sheckt knelt close to him. "You tried to play god, old man. You opened Pandora's Box and let out all the anomalies. Then along came me." He began to smile again. "There's always a price to pay. And I'm it." He smiled. "Father."   
An hour after the conference ended, Jesse was standing outside Charlotte's door, listening to her muffled breathing. He'd hoped to catch her alone. He wanted to talk. Weeks ago, when he'd found the letter from her trapped between the pages of the book from the dark future, there had been only confusion. Just thinking about time travel made his head hurt. He'd dwelled on the subject for some time, even allowed it to interfere with work.  
  
Jesse knew what the letter said was true. Instinct made him believe it. Yet, even though he could not deny an attraction to Charlotte, he felt uncertain. What had happened before occurred as a direct result of Adam and Emma's subtraction from the Mutant X team. The feisty brunette joined after, aiding the team for a time before Eckhart's forces overran Sanctuary.  
  
"Now she's here anyway." He said to himself, standing sentinel, wondering about how things were progressing. It seemed as if, on some level, fate was trying to reassert itself. Jesse shook his head, brushing aside his concerns. The idea of the nightmare future resurrecting unsettled him. "Adam and Emma are here and in love. Sanctuary's safe. The book, the letter,  
that's all real. But things aren't going to turn out the same way."  
  
A faint moan from Charlotte's room caught his ear. Jesse started to open her door, then stopped. He could hear her tossing and turning in bed. She was having a nightmare. Again, he started to think about the feelings building inside him for this woman. "But is what I'm feeling for her real? Or is it just an echo of what happened in our future? God, this whole situation makes my head hurt."  
  
"You're not the only one brother."  
  
Whirling in alarm, Jesse saw Brennan walking in with Shalimar right behind him, the former fending her off as she tried to check his head for the tenth time. He breathed a sigh of relief, his heart steadily easing back. "I'm going to tie a bell around both your necks."  
  
"Didn't mean to spook you." Brennan said, trademark smirk in place as he twisted away from Shalimar's probing fingers. "I know you feel compelled to touch me, most women do, but please relax. Me and my skull are just fine."  
  
"Funny Brennan." The blonde said though she didn't laugh nor smile much. "Will you just hold still and let me look? I know Adam scanned you and everything seemed fine but I want to make sure for myself." Grabbing his arm to stop him from walking away from her, concern clear in her eyes, Shalimar touched the side of Brennan's head worriedly. "You said the headaches hadn't gone away. I'm worried about you. When I'm worried about someone, I need to be doing something."  
  
"Okay, I surrender. Don't know why I'm fighting you anyway." He smiled at her, a multi megawatt grin that would have lit a room even if he weren't an electrical Elemental new mutant.  
"Your hands on me, that's my idea of fun."  
  
Rolling her eyes, smiling in a vaguely embarrassed way, Shalimar started going over his bruised head. "So how's Charlotte?" She asked conversationally, glancing over at Jesse. "Did Adam give her the particulars?"  
  
She didn't ask why he was standing outside her bedroom door.  
  
For that, Jesse was deeply thankful.  
  
He cleared his throat, switching his thoughts from the future's past to the present. "Yeah,  
Adam explained our computer net and the passwords in brief. If she wants to walk around by herself or get on the Internet, Sanctuary won't sound any alarms. After everything she's been through today, I don't think Charlotte will want to wander." He nodded towards the guest room.  
"Right now she's dead asleep."  
  
"Whoa! What happened to her?" Brennan gasped, hearing only the "dead" part of what Jesse had said.  
  
The day had been so filled with surprises, so glutted with grave turns, that the idea of an assassin entering their home and silently murdering Charlotte wasn't beyond thought. Half distracted by Shalimar's probing of his badly bruised skull, he focused on the worst possibility instantly. Nerves still tightly wound, body still not certain the danger was past, electric currant began to seethe between his finger tips.  
  
"Easy Brennan, chill. She's just sleeping." Jesse smiled weakly. "Bad choice of words,  
sorry." Seeing that Shalimar had also grown tense and, surprisingly, feeling his own hands clutched into fists at his sides, he felt a deep unease that left only grudgingly. When he brought one hand up to his eyes, it was shaking slightly. Quietly, he said "I guess we're all still on edge.  
With everything that's happened, I guess I really shouldn't be surprised."  
  
"It's okay." Brennan glanced beside him at Shalimar. "We're all okay, even me with my banged up head. No injuries we can't handle."  
  
"Just revelations." She muttered darkly before turning away from him.  
  
Surprised, Brennan reached out and grasped her shoulder. "Hey, what did I say? You sound angry." She glanced back at him, then there was the faintest twitch of her eyes toward Adam's room. His puzzlement disintegrated. "Oh. You're mad because I didn't tell you about them, right? You think I should have told you about Adam and Emma."  
  
Shalimar looked away from him.  
  
"Are you okay with them? With what's going on between them?" Brennan asked as Jesse came closer, worry in his eyes.  
  
Her face was lowered.  
  
She whispered. "No."   
"Adam?"  
  
"Hmm?"  
  
Shifting position under downy, warm sheets, Emma propped herself up on one side. Her elbow pressed into the pillow, she studied Adam's profile for a moment. In the bedroom twilight,  
she could just barely make out the strength of his handsome face.  
  
Outside muted, distant thunder pulsed.  
  
Emma shivered.  
  
"What's wrong?" Adam asked, sensing a change in her.  
  
"Something's been bothering me. Ever since the meeting after dinner." She whispered,  
perhaps worried that someone else might hear her. Perhaps afraid she might hear herself. "This man, Aaron Sheckt, he's not like the others we've fought against. He knew exactly how to come after us; he knew how we would react."  
  
Adam turned his head toward her. "You're afraid of him?"  
  
"Yes. No. I don't know yet." For a moment, she did not go on. She rested there, meeting his gaze, wanting nothing more than to let silence carry her to sleep. Something had been gnawing at her for some time, something that, until this very moment, she'd never fully understood. Now,  
Emma could put it into words, but she didn't want to. More than anything else, she just wanted the stillness unbroken.  
  
Those concerned eyes were what made her go on. She couldn't refuse him the answers he deserved. "When we came back form the future, I thought at first that it was all over. We'd changed everything. Then, I started to wonder." Emma reached over to him and he took her hand, squeezing comfortingly. "I'm afraid Adam. I'm afraid that there's going to be repercussions because we're together."  
  
"I don't understand."  
  
"Balance, Adam. The cosmic scales. Balance. When we came back from that nightmare,  
we brought with us love and hope and for one instant millions of other people felt destiny touch them. They saw their fates. I know that they tried to make things better." Her eyes shimmered with the threat of tears. "We've brought a lot of good into the world Adam. You can't have that kind of imbalance. We paid a price today, but nowhere near what's owed."  
  
He leaned over and held her close, letting her snuggle close. Holding her, feeling her body against his, it was easy to believe that she was wrong.  
  
"I wish I thought you wrong Emma." Adam said quietly, thinking about his own fears.  
Aaron Sheckt had killed so many people today, just for a chance to destroy Mutant X. He was a wildcard, unpredictable. "Whatever price fate demands from us, we'll fight against it together.  
I'm not losing you or anyone else."  
  
"What if we haven't really changed anything Adam?" She asked, her cheek pressed against his throat. "Charlotte's here, just like she was in the future. Thirty years if a long time. What if we just delayed what's coming?"  
  
Gently kissing the top of her head, hugging her tight with arms around, Adam reassured her.  
"We've changed everything Emma. All that pain and suffering that was going to be, it's been prevented. Eckhart can't become Emperor as long as we're here." Without knowing that he was about to lie to her, he took her slender chin in hand.  
  
"I swear Emma, no part of that future exists. Not now."  
  
Long before they fell asleep, in the city where Mutant X had fought the GSA and Gabriel Ashlocke's Strand, a woman with dark hair and a petite body made plans. Her name, cast from deep within the future storm, was Valerie Curio. Under the desert sands of the Midwest, Aaron Sheckt prepared a new offensive against Adam Kane and Mutant X, hating them for reasons that were only then beginning to become brutally clear.  
  
Emma would have called them the price.  
END OF EPILOGUE  
  
Author's Note: I will soon be posting a sequel entitled "Paradigm" which will focus on the sudden turns from cannon Mutant X I'm about to take. (Yes, even more severe than those I've already taken with this new Season 2 MX verse of mine!)  
  
For all of those who read "The Price," I didn't feel that this quite came out as good as I had intended. I hope, however, to return to the power you felt with "Flashforward." This next story will be excellent. I've been working on it for a long time.  
  
As usual, I appologize for the long wait between parts and promise this time that, once started, I will finish "Paradigm" quickly and powerfully. Hope you'll join me. 


End file.
